Twice as Nice

Introducing ...

2010-07-24T22:20:00.001-04:00

... our new blog, "Three's a Charm"! Can't be "Twice as Nice" with three kids!

I won't be posting here anymore (sniff - I'll miss it ...) and little by little I'll copy all the posts from this blog and past them over there. Click here to be taken to the new blog and to see if we had a boy or a girl ... see you there!

Check Ups

2010-05-12T10:40:00.002-04:00

This post was inspired by Safire over at Waterfalling Up - she has a new blog design and lots of cool giveaways this week. Check her out!

In the past I have always scheduled the girls' yearly checkups on a Saturday so that Andy could come with me. It was just too nuts with me bringing them by myself. This year I couldn't get a Saturday appointment close to their birthday so I just picked something during the week and decided this was the year they would just have to learn to start behaving. And, thankfully, they did a pretty good job.

They both wanted to bring their doctor's kits with them and I thought it was a great idea. Getting all the parts into the teeny box was another story - why do they make that box so shallow? Sheesh.

One girls sat while the other was being checked. This is a very small office, only one doctor and 2 nurses, so the girls know everyone. I chose a practice like this on purpose because I didn't want to see a different doctor everytime I took them - I like consistency. He is an internist, too, so he is Andy and my doctor as well. I like small town livin'.

First were the height and weight checks - Katie is about 2 inches taller and 3 pounds heavier than Maddie, but that was no surprise. All you have to do is look at them to see that. Katie is all muscle - it amazes me. Maddie is still soft and jiggly - just like her mommy!

They had their eyes checked, too - and they both did great. I have a feeling that they will both end up with glasses someday, considering Andy, I, and all our parents had glasses - and all but one of our brothers. But for now they are fine.

They get the biggest kickout of that blood pressure thingy. The use their toy ones at home constantly on anyone or anything that will sit still. Me, Andy, their dolls, stuffed animals, you name it. If it has a limb it will have its blood pressure checked. So you can imagine how much they LOVED seeing the real thing in action and having someone do it to them.

This part of the exam went great - nothing to set them off. I knew they were getting shots and I casually mentioned it to them once or twice so I let them practice on my at home with their little pink syringe that came with their kit. I made them do it to my arm fast and then I would say "Ouch! Hey - that was fast - not bad at all." I didn't want to pretend that it wouldn't hurt, it felt like lieing, but I wanted them to know that it was over quickly. They always laughed at me and I would laugh back. I felt like Pavlov trying to condition my girls to laugh at the sound of my "ouch!"

Once we got into the examining room we had to put those little gowns on them - and the looked so cute!

That kit came out again and kept them very nicely occupied - they just kept examining each other. They finally they got to see their buddy, Dr. B. He is such a calm person - it's so nice. No rushing - no talking fast - he thinks before he responds to my questions - it's such a nice atmosphere for the girls. He tells them what he's going to check - the other one watches - it's great.

Dr. B doesn't do their shots - he has the nurse take care of that. He doesn't want the girls to associate him with the pain. The nurses laugh and are like, "sure - let them blame us!" But it is a good idea.

They took their shots (2 each) in stride (just a little crying but I kept saying "It's over fast, right? Right?" and they agreed through watery eyes) and were rewarded with Dum Dums - brown for Katie (she loves the root beer) and Maddie likes the orange ones. Mommy snagged a cherry!

It was a great visit and I was very happy that they behaved so well. It easily could have gone the other way.

And now they love to say, "No more shots until next year! Yay!"

Learning the ropes

2010-05-11T11:28:00.008-04:00

Our hospital offers a Sibling's Class so that the "big brothers and big sisters to be" can get an idea of how life will change once a new baby comes into their lives. I wasn't going to do it, but in the end changed my mind after thinking it wouldn't be a bad idea. (At least they can't blame me years from now that I didn't prepare them!)

They had to bring a picture of them as a baby and a doll or stuffed animal with them. It was nice - first each child (there were about 10 of them) walked around the room with the instructor and showed their baby picture to everyone while the parents told a special thing about them as a baby. I said that Maddie was wide eyed and just loved to look at everything around her. Katie was a screamer and a climber. Both of those hold true to this day!

Then they got the chance to practice diapering their dolls.

They both loved this part and took it sooooo seriously. Good! Because anytime they want to step in with this new little one is fine by me!

They watched a cute little movie that showed a new big brother and all the changes that were happening in his house. The instructors went over how to hold a baby ("Never pick up the baby!") and all the things that the baby couldn't do that they COULD. Like eat ice cream. I have a feeling there are going to be lots of ice cream requests over the summer!

We also got a tour of the new Maternity Ward - no pictures allowed. It's all brand new, even from when I was there four years ago. I did manage to get a single room to myself last time, mostly because I had twins, but now ALL the rooms are singles! Whoo hoo! I don't share well.

Andy slept on a cot for 4 nights last time and now there is a nice built in couch/window seat for him. He's excited about that.

I had a C-Section with the girls, but only because Katie was breech and she was first. So I am going for a VBAC this time and my OB is all for it. I told him that if it looks like things aren't going well and I need to have another C to just wheel me on in. I want to try for the VBAC, but I'm not being stupid about it.

Another new thing with this one is that we are using cloth diapers. But that's a whole 'nother post!

Not like the old days

2010-05-10T14:23:00.003-04:00

We have been loving this weather lately, even though it plummeted in the last few days. The girls had off their birthday week and we spent a lot of it outside with some of their new presents. They wanted roller skates and I wanted to get them new bicycles.

Their grandparents came over their actual birthday-day and we opened presents from them that night and as promised, my mom got them the much longed for roller skates. They are just like the kind I had when I was little - they expand to fit around your sneakers. Except these are cute friendly, pink plastic princess ones and mine were hard, unforgiving metal that would probably have given me tetanus if I fell on them the wrong way. But hey - we all survived. And what's with the helmet and knee pads, Katie? It's no fun unless you're risking life and limb.

Maddie, who has never been adventurous as Katie, saw her sister wobbling around and decided that bubbles would do her just fine, thank you very much. Which was fine with me, too, - because as much as Maddie doesn't like the athletics, I don't like it when she falls and had bloody scabs for days either. Hey - she has other gifts - the kid was reading when she was two - she'll be just fine.

Her goal was to blow a BIG bubble and she just couldn't get it - and not for lack of trying. So I jumped in "Mommy will show you how!" and darn it if I couldn't do it either. I blew into the wand reaaalllll sllooooowww and it just wasn't happening. Skates and bubbles. They just don't make them like they used to.

I'm Staging a Comeback!

2010-05-10T08:59:00.000-04:00

Hey all! Just getting my act together and getting ready to enter the world of blogging again. This pregnancy has been a toughie compared to the girls, which is ironic considering there's one less little one in there now, but with only five weeks left I can see the finish line!

Stay tuned for more ... and the reveal of a new blog in June .. can't still be calling myself "Twice is Nice" if there are THREE little ones!

Love and miss you all!

Hmmm ... not quite sure about this design

2010-01-01T21:24:00.004-05:00

First things first - Happy New Year!!! Hope you all had a great night last night, I'll post about ours later this week.

Second things second - I'm still not in love with January's design here - I wanted to splash things up a little by using bright colors but I'm just not feeling it. Is the blue too bright - is the main background an off-pink? I'm not sure. I was really trying to get January up for January so I may have rushed it a bit. Oh well!

We have a very busy January planned - lots of birthday parties - a mini-vacay - and (ugh) tax season begins so let me just say bye-bye to Andy now. I put up my new calendar and there are few things in this world I love as much as a new calendar! Just looking at all those empty boxes waiting to be filled with plans and events - so cool.

I've been playing around with that "Next Blog" button up at the top and found some really cool blogs that way. I always love family blogs - but I have also found a whole new genre that interests me - blogs about nothing in particular that just make me laugh out loud. Like Cake Wrecks - and You Suck at Craigslist.

I wish you all a fabulous 2010 - and for all your biggest hopes to come true!

Christmas break has begun

2009-12-22T13:27:00.007-05:00

Well, technically the girls get out tomorrow - but I am checking out in my mind today. I'll be back to blogging after Christmas - I'll miss you all!

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (I may be back before New Year's, but I make no promises ...)

Our first Christmas together, 2002.

We were so young! So thin (him at least)! (Hey - despite the bangs I really like my hair ...)

We had no idea of the craziness that was to come - and now that it's here we wouldn't trade it for the world.

Dear Baby (Week 15)

2009-12-21T09:26:00.005-05:00

Hello there, baby. How are things? Good ... good. Me? Oh, well - I am cold.

I can't ever remember being this cold in my life.

I went to Catholic school and wore a skimpy wrap-around kilt until the 12th grade that I was told on many occasions was shorter than regulation, so I have pretty high cold tolerance. I keep the heat set at 65 or less when we go to sleep at night. I have to have my window open in the car all year round so I can breathe in the fresh air.

It snowed and snowed this past weekend and usually I am out with your Daddy and sisters running around taking pictures, enjoying the air. Whew - not this time. Just opening the door to let them all outside gave me a bad case of the shivers. Brrrrrrrrrr. I took pictures through the windows from inside. Not very good shots I must tell you.

What's going on here?

You taking all my body heat?

OK - you can have it.

Just let me go grab another sweater. Love, Mama

Deck the Halls with Lots More Laundry

2009-12-19T15:29:00.006-05:00

(This is an icky post about sick kids, but I need to get it out. You've been warned.)

The 24-hour bug hit us hard this week. Except I really shouldn't call it a 24-hour bug because it lasted oh so much longer than that. My cousin Tara suggested I call it the 24-hour-plus bug, so that's what I'm going with.

It started on Tuesday at dinner - in that Maddie lost hers. It wasn't horrible and it was only once and she was fine after I cleaned it up. No fever so I figured the blueberries (eeeew) just didn't sit well in her tummy. (I called it her "belly" that day and she got very upset with me and said with emphasis that it was her TUMMY. Noted.)

All was well for the the rest of the night. Katie started crying for me around 10:30pm that she had to go to the bathroom and she did a GOOD one so I was happy. Then she started screaming for me 15 minutes later and she had vomited everywhere! (That's the last time I will use that word - from now on it will just be "it." Ugh.) All over her bed and pillow and animals. Andy had just given the girls a bath that night but she needed to be bathed again. I cleaned up the mess (so much fun for a pregnant woman who gags) and she said she was feeling better. She went back to bed and all was well.

Except it wasn't.

We repeated that scenario about 7 times that night. Each time was less and less messy - but she didn't stop until about 4am. My heart was breaking for her - and the pile of laundry that kept growing and growing in my basement. Four sets of sheets, 7 blankets, 3 pillows, plus all her clothes. I stayed with her until about 3am, and then Andy took over from there and just slept on the floor beside her bed. She was very upset. I called her out of school the next day and the secretary said she wasn't the only one sick.

Then on Thursday I was taking the girls to get their 2nd H1N1 shot and Katie gags on a piece of banana and loses "it" in the waiting area. Ugh. Andy ran to get someone to help us clean it up, I'm kneeling down holding Katie because she's crying, a friend of mine, Tracey, is watching Maddie for me, people are moving away from us, it was nuts. A nearby dad asked if he could help with anything - which was so nice. The nurses didn't want to give Katie the shot at this point and I agreed - (just when I thought we would all be done with vaccinations for the year). So now I have to find another place to take her.

THEN - while I was Walmart with my neighbor Lisa - Maddie loses "it" in her bed. Andy cleaned it up and bathed her all alone and I felt so bad. He said it was fine though and that Maddie kept thanking him: "Thank you for cleaning me up, Daddy ... Thank you for giving me a bath, Daddy ... Thank you for warming me up, Daddy." Too cute. She's done that before.

That was Thursday night and we have been "it" free since then. The laundry situation is still out of control because all my regular laundry had to be put on hold so I could clean up all the other things that were a mess. I did a few loads more than once just to be sure. I ran out of detergent at one point and had to wait for Andy to pick me up some on the way home from work so that set me back a day, too.

Thanks for sticking with me through this icky post - I just needed to vent!

Hope you all have a "24-hour-plus" free Christmas!

Pictures with Santa through the years

2009-12-16T22:37:00.007-05:00

We took the girls to visit Santa Claus this past Saturday at our town's Community Center. It was free, we could take our own pictures, it was free, they had music and munchies for the girls, and hey ... it was free! I worked in a mall for years and years and I always admired those parents who brought their youngins to see Santa - the place was always a madhouse. I try to avoid the mall around Christmas by any means possible.

This is the first year that the girls REALLY understand Santa and who he is and what he does so I had high hopes. They point him out in drawings or figures whereever we go so I figured we had a pretty good chance of getting a decent picture this year.

The CC gave out numbers as you walked in and called them out in sets of 10 so you didn't have to wait on line for an hour. There was so much for the kids to do: dance with the DJ, color, look at the HUGE tree, and walk through a mini Christmas village. We had a great time, saw lots of neighbors, and when our number was called we only waited on line for about 5-7 minutes.

As we were waiting, I mulled in my head our pictures with Santa through the years ...

Their first Christmas ... 2006 ...

This picture was taken at my twin club's annual Breakfast with Santa. The girls were 8 months old and crawling all over the filthy floor. I absolutely LOVE this picture. I actually entered it into a contest, but that was over three years ago and I never heard anything so I'm figuring we didn't win. The next picture is what happened about 30 seconds after this was shot ...

30 Seconds Later

Katie lost it. Check out Maddie's face. "Yo, dude, whassup?"

Second Christmas ... 2007

Not bad, not bad. Again at twin club Breakfast with Santa. Both a little shy, but I remember they would not look at the camera at all. Katie has this sheepish grin on her face (looking down) and Maddie and Santa are just checking eack other out.

Third Christmas ... 2008 (last year)

Whoa, Nellie - this was a toughie. We decided to try something new that year and went to Santa Land (check out that post here). The place was GREAT - but neither girl would even go near him. This first picure is Maddie going floppy (which she still does) and just melting to the floor.

Here's Katie, just clinging for dear life. There was quite a line behind us, but that Santa was wonderful and really tried his best to talk to the girls. He gave them both an apple and they managed to smile at him in the end.

This Christmas ... 2009

What a difference! Here is Maddie posing in front of one of the village scenes. There were 8 of these overall - each one had little children/elves in a different Christmas scene: cutting down the tree, baking cookies, making toys, decorating the tree, ice skating - and they all moved. Maddie was enthralled and spent most of the time walking up and down the lane just looking at them all.

Katie spent most of her time coloring, but I got her to check out the village a little bit, too.

Daddy and the girls in front of the tree.

Finally it was our turn to meet Santa ...

They ran and gave him the biggest hug! It was great!

What a shot! I just love this picture.

(I wish I had thought of taking their pics with him separately - it's on my list from now on.)

They are finally old enough to pose for a picture with Santa.

Let's see what a 6 month old will add to the mix next year!

Away in a Manger

2009-12-15T11:48:00.004-05:00

Katie's school's Christmas Concert was this past Friday and it was beautiful. It is a K-8 school and every class participated (through song or narration) in the story of Christmas.

Katie's class were cherubs and they sang "Away in a Manger." They sent a note home about a month ago that the preschoolers needed to wear a white shirt and white pants. I avoid white clothing on my girls like the plague - I had nothing for her to wear! I found a white long sleeved shirt at Walmart, and thank goodness my friend Carol had a pair of white pants that she let us borrow. (White pants!?!)

They sent the words home and we practiced - though she liked to fool around almost every time. She would sing in a mouse's voice or in a really deep voice or just mouth the words with no sound. It drove me nuts!

But, lo and behold, when it came for her to be on stage she sang every word! There were about twenty 3-year-olds on stage and you could barely hear them, but I saw her mouth moving. Whoo hoo! I videotaped her song, but of course I have no clue how to transfer it (on tape) to the computer. We got there super early so we had a great spot in the second row.

I must say I really loved it - I can't wait for both of them to do more things like this as they grow up!

Dear Baby (Week 14)

2009-12-13T09:09:00.010-05:00

Dear Little Baby - which is what we seem to be calling you lately! (I tried to make up cute little names for the girls when I was pregnant with them but they didn't stick either, so don't feel bad.)

Your presence is still making itself known in my day to day happenings. The exhaustion is less, it usually just comes around at dinnertime - which is impeccable timing since that's usually the time your sisters turn into creatures from another planet and decide that the love they have given each other all day has now come to an end. My gag reflex is alive and well - oh boy - do I have some not-to-be-told-when-anyone-is-eating-stories to tell!

Your sisters talk about you all the time. Whenever Katie sees a baby she says, "Just like the baby in your belly!" to me with a big smile on her face. They both pick up my shirt and Katie wants to touch you through my bellybutton. (Which gives me the willies!) Maddie tells you she is going to be your big sister with a big smile on her face and in quiet shy voice and then asks if you are coming today. I smile and say, "The baby will be here when it gets warm outside."

We decorated more of the Christmas tree today and I found one of my favorite ornaments: two bears touching noses, one labeled Katie and one labeled Maddie. Next year I will have to find one with three little bears on it!

We have no idea if you are a boy or a girl - and I have visions in my head of you as one or the other all the time. I see you as a boy on top of the roof in your teens helping Daddy hang Christmas lights - and I see you as a girl on top of the roof in your teens helping Daddy hang Christmas lights. Your Daddy will not discriminate! I see you with your Daddy's red hair and I see you with my dark brown hair. Your sisters blue eyed genes were strong enough to overpower my dominant brown eyes - will yours be that strong, too? Will I finally get a kid who looks like me or will I have to continue to point out your Daddy to people when they look at me and the girls with quizzical looks on their faces? Either way is fine with me!

Have a good week, Baby ... we can't wait to feel you start moving! Love, Mama

How we get Katie to take her antibiotics

2009-12-11T12:35:00.011-05:00

Poor Katie. She has been out of school almost as much as she's been in. When she first started school I was very cautious - if she had a cough or runny nose of any kind I would keep her home. I was a brand new school mommy and I figured other parents wouldn't send their kids to school like that. Hah!

Once I realized how it REALLY goes, I only kept her home if she had a fever or a really bad cold. Which she has had quite often. Example: She missed picture day because of pink eye. Then she missed the make-up picture day this past Wednesday because she currently has a urinary tract infection.

So this week she is on antibiotics and she is none too happy about it. Let me show you how each morning and each evening goes in our household ...

We start by circling each other ...

I get her in a hold and start to bring her down ...

She escapes and the circling begins again!

Andy has to come in for backup ...

I've got a good grip! (And this is literally the face that Katie makes.)

She's pinned!

It's in her mouth - she's crying and rolling on the floor. (Don't worry - she gets a pez when she's done and she knows it.)

Mommy is victorious!!!

How does medicine taking go over in YOUR house?

Our Christmas Card Surprise

2009-12-09T11:19:00.004-05:00

When we decided (read: when I convinced Mr. Andy Man) to try for a third kid we at first thought of planning for last year, when the girls would turn three. Which meant we had to get started when they were 2 1/2 - which both of us immediately reconsidered! We decided that waiting until the girls were going to be four when the new baby was born was probably a better idea.

I still can't get pregnant on my own, so we did IVF again (we did it for the girls) - and since we knew the drill it wasn't nearly as daunting this time. Our only request from our fabulous doctors at RMA was that we only wanted ONE embryo transfered. They laughed and said, "Sure - but you know it may split, right?" Oh yes, we knew! We just knew we'd have to add another bedroom onto the house if that happened.

It was so different this time because of a few reasons. We decided not to tell anyone this time. When we couldn't get pregnant years ago - everyone knew. They knew we were trying - they knew we were going through infertility treatments - they knew when we had the IVF done - and they knew the minute I found out I was pregant. They knew we were having twins - they knew they were girls - they even knew their names. I really wanted the element of surprise this time.

Another thing that was different than years ago was that now we had the girls. Andy was always able to come to appointments with me (which were anywhere from 5:30-7:30am). Now he had to stay home with the girls. We had a friend lined up to babysit the girls when the actual transfer took place - but then both our girls were sick with horrible horrible colds and we didn't want to get her little girl sick, so Andy stayed home instead. I went alone. It wasn't horrible - but I would have loved for him to be there to hold my hand.

We found out within a week that the transfer worked! And we found out a few days later that the embryo did NOT split. Yay!

Now we had to wait to tell everyone. I wanted to be sure and I wanted the baby to be safe. We waited until 8 weeks to tell our parents and siblings - on Halloween! All our parents were in a state of shock I think, and looked at us like we were nuts. Hey - we may be nuts, but all I know it that I felt like someone was missing. There was a notion of another little kid running around this house that I could just not get out of my head.

I don't want you all to think that our parents are upset or anything - I think we just shocked them! Trust me - they will eat this next little one up judging by the way they adore our girls in a way I never thought possible! :)

So now we had to tell everyone else. When I saw that I was going to hit 12 weeks the first week of December, "Christmas card" immediately popped into my head. My cousin did it a few years ago and I thought it was such a great idea - so I copied. That week we had our nuchal scan screening and got great results so the next day I mailed the cards.

I took a picture of the girls wearing "I'm gonna be a Big Sister" shirts instead of a Christmas dress. Mail must be fast because the next day the phone rang and rang. It was great to tell everyone and hear "Are you sure it's not two?" over and over!

I'll be blogging more and more now. I am just starting to feel better - the exhaustion, morning sickness, and headaches are almost gone. (Shhh ... don't tell Andy ...)

Twice is Nice ... but Three's a Charm

2009-12-08T20:36:00.002-05:00

June 13, 2010

A prayer for a friend

2009-11-16T23:00:00.002-05:00

Please pray and send good thoughts to my friend Alicia and her husband Josh who literally had an adoption slip through their fingers this week. They have been trying to have a child for over 7 years now and got news last week that a woman had chosen them to be adoptive parents of her soon-to-be-born baby boy, only to change her mind this week. I don't have any judgement towards this mother - but at the same time I am upset that my friend is hurting.

Take a few moments to read her blog, http://www.yayastuff.net/, and their adoption website, http://hopingtoadoptamiracle.blogspot.com/, if you'd like.

Thanks.

Halloween Pics!

2009-10-31T18:23:00.005-04:00

It is raining here in Northern NJ and we had a wet Halloween. But did that stop us (me) from getting our candy? No way! We went out with umbrellas and raincoats and hoods and had a blast.

The girls were butterfly/faeries and they were just so excited (mostly Katie) to get all dressed up in pink and glitter from head to toe.

Here are some pics from today ...

Hope you all had a wonderful day - and I hope there was sunshine in other parts of the country today! We took one for the team this year - next year we get the sun!

Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

2009-09-14T23:29:00.003-04:00

I just read that Patrick Swayze passed away this evening. I don't know why it is affecting me so much - usually I don't see the big deal that just because someone is a celebrity they deserve our adoration. I can't say for sure what Patrick Swayze was like in real life - but I can't remember any scandals surrounding him.

But Dirty Dancing was a movie that came out when I was in the 8th grade - and we all wanted to be Baby. I saw it with Melissa Barbier - we rolled up our jeans and we wore our Keds. We all wanted to meet the seemingly bad guy with the heart of gold. It takes me back to a time in my life where I was just about to enter high school and I was excited about all the new things to come. Patrick Swayze in this movie will always be a part of that - for reasons I am having a hard time explaining.

You can't help but watch this clip and want to stand up and dance. Even Andy loves that famous line - he's said it to the girls on many an occasion!

My prayers are with his family - rest in peace ...

Sesame Place

2009-09-13T21:21:00.007-04:00

Mr. Andy Man took a week off in August and we did a few daycations, and I even had a whole day to myself! (Thank you my darling!)

One day we asked the grandparents to come to Sesame Place with us, and we all had a great time. It was a bit of a muggy day - and it POURED for about two hours while we were there - but as long as there was no thunder the rides stayed open. There was no thunder - and the girls had a blast in the rain. Thankfully my mom and Andy agreed to get wet with them - and I huddled under an awning with our wagon of stuff for two hours!

The GPS took us through a ridiculously long and windy route to get there - down a highway with a million and one lights. Andy's parents were coming from PA (Sesame Place is in PA) and their GPS took them into NJ first! Crazy maps. But eventually we got there safely and loaded up the wagon with food and towels and clothes and backpacks and the kitchen sink. In case we got thirsty.

Many of you may remember that Maddie does not do well in crowds. Or on hot days. Or waiting for any period of time longer than 15 seconds. So ... you know ... she did just great! (Insert sarcasm here.) The funny thing is that I KNOW she will love the rides once she gets on them and starts moving, so I push her to wait on the lines even though she drives everyone in our general vicinity nuts. "Sorry, people - we all have kids - deal." We did a few dry rides first thing - and she did smile and smile. Katie has much more patience and doesn't mind waiting, but Maddie can rile her up quick.

It was a trying morning, and I think I lost my temper more than I would have liked - but after we ate lunch we decided to just put them in their bathing suits and let them on the water rides for the rest of the day. Then it started drizzling. Just drizzling. Andy's parents decided to call it a day at this point - and I didn't blame them. Good thing, too - because after about 5 minutes after they left the rain came down! My mom was stuck with us because we were her ride - but she just got wet and was fine with it. They were all playing in Count's Splash Castle where every 10 minutes or so a huge bucket would drop hundreds of gallons of water all over everyone. We kept the girls away but Andy ran under it a few times!

I hid under said awning and chilled. It was rainy and it was hot. I stayed about 90% dry and wasn't complaining. After about an hour it started to let up and I saw that some patio tables with umbrellas were open so I rolled the wagon over there and chilled some more. Then it started pouring again! I was in a good spot and didn't get wet, but the wagon was not fairing as well.

Andy and my mom took turns bringing the girls back and forth to get a quick dry off and a drink or a snack - but those girls wanted to go right back into the water. The parade was right by where I was sitting, and because it was raining - we got front row seats. That parade BOOKED by, though. You could tell they were double timing it.

It finally stopped raining and we went to the other water rides throughout the park and the rest of the day went really smoothly. The highlight of the day was when they got to meet Zoe and the Count. Those two were the only characters we saw the whole day. When the girls saw Zoe they just ran right up to her and hugged her legs and wouldn't let go. It was adorable! Katie did the same thing to the Count, but Maddie was a little scared of him. Still adorable!

We left around 6ish - stopped at BK for food for the girls and they fell asleep the rest of the way home. I chose a different route from the GPS and we took highways the whole ride home. Better!

We bought two day tickets and have one day left to use. The water rides are all closed, but we will venture again sometime this month - we didn't do a lot of the dry rides or any of the shows. I'm glad we took them this year as opposed to last year, and I have a feeling next year will be a little better.

As long as it doesn't rain.

Here's a little slideshow of the day - enjoy!

First Day of School

2009-09-11T07:56:00.008-04:00

We had a busy hectic week figuring out schedules and what time we all have to get up in the morning. I decided to send the girls to different schools for a variety of reasons, and they seem to have taken to it fine. Maddie goes 5 days a week and Katie goes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are crazy.

We bought an extra carseat for Andy's car so he could drive Katie to school in the morning. Maddie takes the bus, which is just sooo much easier. But Katie's school is only like 7 minutes away so it's really not that bad.

Katie's first day was last Friday and it was a beautiful sunny day. Maddie hadn't started yet so we only had the one kid to get ready. It was nice, it was fine, it was a breeze. "We got this!" Andy and I said with a chuckle.

Katie's First Day!

Tuesday came (day after Labor Day) and it was Maddie's turn. Her bus doesn't come super early so we had time - and since it wasn't a Katie school day, again we only had one kid to get ready. "Hah!" Andy and I exclaimed with grins.

Maddie's First Day!

Then Wednesday hit. And we were promply put in our place.

We woke up them at 7am - "plenty of time!" I thought to myself. After all, we woke up at 7am on Katie's first day and it went like clockwork. But now we had two crazy little girls to get ready. Our stress level did not just double, it quadrupled. "Eat! Go potty! Come here! Stand still! I'm not brushing it too hard! Arms up! Keep your socks on! That's not yours!"

I suppose we'll laugh about this one day.

One day years from now.

Finally they were dressed and Katie was ready to leave with Andy. But since it was their first day of school together I wanted to take some pictures of them together. I was dreading it - after the morning we had I would have been happy with just one picture of them crying together. But they were great!

They posed and laughed and hugged. I wanted one picture of them hugging each other and looking at me, but they just couldn't get it, so Andy said, "C'mon" to get them to behave. They thought he meant "C'mon over here," so they started walking towards us. Literal children. (PS - I always said I wouldn't dress them alike when they started school, but since they aren't at the same school I figure it's OK!)

This morning was a double-child-school-day and I was determined not to have a repeat of Wednesday. I got them up at 6:30am - and it was much smoother. We needed that extra half-hour. Andy had to be in his office for an 8am meeting so I had to drive Katie to school, and Maddie had to come along for the ride. It's raining and I expected some craziness, but it was fine. Whew.

I'll just keep repeating to myself, "One day ... years from now ..."

Dirty Dirt Dirt

2009-09-07T11:45:00.007-04:00

I am JUST getting calm enough to let the girls play in the dirt. It probably has something to do with the fact that they don't eat it or throw it anymore. I just make sure the clothes they have on are already stained and I let them loose. And I don't look.

It was so cool, beautiful, and breezy last night that we all went in the backyard to just chill. Even though we have a nice selection of climbing appartus-es and slides my darling daughters go straight for the back of our yard where hardly any sun gets through the trees and there are nice surfaces of brown calling to them: "Psst ... Katie ... Maddie ... c'mon over here. Those clothes need a little color on them."

And of course Mr. Andy Man cannot let fun be had without him.

"Just makin' it easier for them."

The wind was blowing the dirt away before it even made it into the bowl.

All I needed was a pitchfork and this picture would have been complete.

Stop & Shop Gift Card Winners!

2009-09-06T09:21:00.005-04:00

We have our winners! I meant to do this yesterday but we had a last minute invite to the Renaissance Faire and were out all day. We had a great time - but that's another post!

OK, so ... I had 4 entries total that made it by the deadline of midnight on Friday. (I had more comments, but they didn't have a Stop & Shop near them - so sad ...). I numbered them in order.

1. Christine
2. Tracey
3. BoufMom9
4. Beverlee

Then, I went to Random.org and generated 2 random numbers between and including 1 and 4.

Here are the results ...

So a big congratulations go out to Christine and Beverlee! Email me at madkatblog@yahoo.com with your addresses and I will get the cards right out to you!

Enjoy your shopping!!!

Giveaway Closed!

2009-09-05T07:31:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone - thanks to all who entered the Stop & Shop giveaway. I will be picking the names of the winners later today and let you know who won!

For those of you who don't have a S&S near you - you are missing out on some good shopping! Haha! :)

Andy and I are off to the Renaissance Fair today while his parents watch the girls. We are going with some of his friends and they aren't bringing their kids so we aren't bringing ours!

Have a great Labor Day weekend everyone!

Stop & Shop Gift Card Giveaway!

2009-09-02T18:58:00.008-04:00

Well, this summer has been a busy one, let me tell you!

We went to lots of family parties, we went to Sesame Place for the first time (which was a good/trying experience), we went to the zoo, we went down the shore, we played and played in the kiddie pools!

I plan on posting lots of slideshows in the upcoming weeks - as well as telling you all about the Katie and Maddie's first day of school! Yikes!

In the meantime, I was contacted by MyBlogSpark on behalf of General Mills and Stop & Shop to hold an awesome giveaway for you guys! Now, just to let you know ... I shop at Stop & Shop almost daily. Seriously. There is one about 5 minutes away from me and Katie and I were there constantly while Maddie was in school. (It's amazing how much shopping can be done with only one child in tow ... I'd go straight to the bakery and get her a bagel and it was smooth sailing.). I like their prices and I like their variety. Recently I went to another store with my mom and the prices were higher than my S&S! So, I don't feel like I am just randomly pushing an advertisement on you guys.

(I also eat Cheerios like they are going out of style. When I was pregnant and teaching I carried a tiny plastic bag of them everywhere I went and just munched all day long - they kept my tummy calm.)

Also, my Stop & Shop has those automatic price scanners, which I planned on blogging about soon anyway. I grab a scanner, grab some bags, and shop. Scan my stuff - put it in my bag. Go to the register - it pulls up my order - I pay - and I'm out the door. No more unloading all my groceries just to reload them back into my cart. I turn into a German nannie and sing, "these are a few of my favorite things" as I roll out the door.

So ... Shop & Stop is having a back-to-school promotion ... here are the details ...

This Back-to-School Saving Event is taking place at Stop & Shop stores September 4-10. Great sale pricing on the participating General Mills brands: Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Reeses Puffs, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cookie Crisp Sprinkles, Cookie Crisp, Fruit Snacks, Old El Paso Dinner Kits, Pillsbury Strudel, Pillsbury Scrambles, Green Giant Boxed Vegetables, Yoplait Yo-Plus Multi-Pack, Fiber One Yogurt Multi-Pack, Pillsbury Refrigerated Cookies, Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, Pillsbury Sweet Rolls and Yoplait Delights.

Additional savings for you or your school, depending on which Stop & Shop location you shop.

If your Stop & Shop store sells gas: (mine doesn't - :(
- Buy four (4) participating General Mills items and you’ll automatically earn 100 points on your Stop & Shop card.
- For every 100 points earned, you'll save 10¢ per gallon of gas (Please note: Total discount cannot exceed price per gallon)
Just swipe your Stop & Shop Card at the pump to redeem your Gas Rewards.

For those Stop & Shop locations without gas stations, don’t worry – you’re not left out of the savings – if you buy five (5) participating General Mills products, you will receive 20 Bonus Box Tops for your school.

AND ... MyBlogSpark, Stop & Shop, and General Mills are allowing me to giveaway a $10 gift card to one lucky reader! But that's not all!

They sent me a $10 for myself, but I have decided to give that one away, too!

So that two - count 'em - TWO - $10 gift cards to Stop & Shop for TWO lucky readers!

(I feel like an infomercial - all I need now is a British accent.)

So here's how to enter ...

1. Leave a comment telling me your favorite time of day to go food shopping and why. (That's one entry.)

2. Blog about this giveaway and you'll get another entry. (Be sure to tell me if you do this.)

Comments will close at midnight on Friday, September 4th. I will choose two winners on Saturday, September 5th and post it up!

Good luck everyone!!!

(And don't worry - I'll take that June banner down soon ... hehe)

I am coming back soon!

2009-08-25T17:49:00.003-04:00

Hey all! I miss you!!! I suddenly decided (back in June) to take the summer off - but then forgot to tell everyone. The girls are starting school in a couple of weeks (whoo hoo!) and I am looking forward to some sort of semblance in my life again.

Thanks to everyone who left me "Where are you/How are you/I miss you" messages. I can't wait to catch up with you all!!!

Father's Day Fun

2009-06-23T19:38:00.001-04:00

We had such a nice Father's Day. We originally intended to go down the shore to Point Pleasant, but looking at the weather in the morning the outlook didn't look good - so we stayed home. Andy took the girls grocery shopping (by choice!) and I had some nice time in the morning to myself.

I told him to pick up whatever he wanted for dinner - and he came home with burgers, tilapia, and scallops. He didn't want to wait for dinner, though, so as soon as the girls went down for their nap he fired it all up on the grill. I'm not a fan of scallops (unless they are wrapped in bacon, of course - everything is better wrapped in bacon) but the tilipia was yummy.

He also came home with two cake mixes, and he couldn't wait for those either. I'm in the dining room and I see Andy out of the corner of my eye bending down for things under the cabinets - opening drawers - then he asked me where the vegetable oil was. He made his own cake! I made him wait to cut it until the girls woke up so I could take a picture. (He was itching for that cake.)

While the little ladies were napping the sun came out! We hemmed and hawed about taking the ride down the shore anyway, just so the girls could go on the rides, but decided against it. I wanted to take them SOMEWHERE - goodness knew when we were going to see the sun again - and after reading on Facebook that my friend Maureen and her family were at the Arboretum we decided to head over there.

I set my camera to the micro setting (the little tulip) and took really close-up shots of some of the flowers. My favorite ones are the two right after the light pink rose in the slideshow. When I saw they were from the hydragea family I was not surprised - my favorite flower! I like what I like.

The Arboretum is great - lots of paths - lots of open fields for the girls to run around in - lots of fountains. Just beautiful.

Enjoy the slideshow!

Taggity-tag-tag

2009-06-19T12:05:00.010-04:00

I've been tagged by Michelle over at Lollypops and Lizards! I usually forget to do the assignment when I get tagged - but I am turning over a new leaf - I am doing this one.

Here's the rules!
1) Go to your photo files…Select the 6th photo folder
2) Select the 6th photo in that folder
3) Post that photo along with the story behind it.
4) Then challenge 5 blog friends to do the same.

Here is my photo ...

It's my favorite piece of furniture - and this picture was taken in our townshouse. (Ahhh ... our first home ... our townhouse ... a place I loved and I miss everyday. Not that I don't love our home now - it's just that when you go from a 12 year old townhouse with a brand new pale yellow and white kitchen that you installed yourself ... to a 55 year old house with dark brown 70s kitchen with ugly flower wallpaper and an electric stove that burns EVERYTHING you cook on it ... you tend to get a little nostalgic.)

The hutch was decorated for Chrismas and I love looking at it. All those plaid dishes and platters and mugs I bought on sale at Target for like 70% off the year before. (You love it, Tiff!) I collect (collected) snowmen and had them displayed in little vignettes all over the dining room and living room. Did I mention this was before the girls?

Right now it is empty. We just haven't had a chance to load it back up again (with my pretty dishes) since the floors were done. This is what it will look like soon ...

I want to get the dishes back in this weekend - I am having Twin Club over next Thursday and would like this place to look lived in.

I am tagging who-ever-so-wishes to participate. Let me know if you do.

Even though it's Wednesday ...

2009-06-17T08:04:00.006-04:00

... here is my A-Z on Mondays entry. And I am only on S to boot.

S is for sprinkled cheese.

Katie and Maddie have very different appetites. Maddie eats (besides fruit and some veggies): french toast, peanut butter and jelly on Ritz crackers, waffles, spaghetti, and chicken McNuggets. She will not try anything new - not even one teensy bite. Katie eats so much more, thank goodness. And she will try just about anything, too - especially if her Daddy is eating it. So I am always offering her new things and adding to her menu little by little.

Spaghetti night occurs here about three times a week mainly because it is a stress free meal for us all. Maddie just does not like to eat and most meals are just torturous for Andy and me. But for some reason she eats the spaghetti here without a fuss, and if I follow it with broccoli she is even more pleased. A few months ago I was watching them eat spaghetti and I had the idea of seeing if they wanted parmesan cheese on it. (I almost can't eat pasta without it.)

Maddie said "no thank you!" quite loudly. Katie looked at it and slowly shook her head yes with big wide eyes. I sprinkled just a little amount. She loved it! Score! She dubbed it sprinkled cheese, or sometimes just "sprinkes." She is really going to be confused in an ice cream shop one day.

So the sprinkled cheese became a fixture on the table on spaghetti nights, and even though Maddie doesn't like it - let me tell you she still likes to hold that bottle! They FIGHT over it quite passionately. I have to time turns for them.

Here are some pictures of Katie and Maddie with their "preeeeciouuus ...."

(The top two pictures are Maddie and the bottom two are Katie. Katie is actually eating Ramen noodles here, which she also loves, in case you were wondering why it doesn't look like spaghetti.)

For more "A-Z on Mondays" visit Jen over at Unglazed!

First Dance Class

2009-06-11T14:48:00.005-04:00

On Sunday night at 11pm I was on Facebook. My friend around the corner - who has twin girls a year older than mine (we have three sets on our block alone, never mind how many more around the corner) posted that her girls had their first dance recital and they loved it. I had been thinking about signing the girls up for a while, but the cost and finding a good place were getting in my way.

I commented on her post and asked where she sent her girls. She told me - I went to the studio's website - saw that they had two openings for their Preschool Combo class and started signing them up online. On Sunday. At 11pm. Mr. Andy Man is sleeping. I would explain it to him in the morning. Bye bye new oven, Rose.

Of course they didn't take Discover - and I don't carry any other card in my wallet. I had to wake him up to ask him where a Visa card was - he was NONE too pleased. He had no idea I was even doing this, but all of a sudden it was THAT IMPORTANT to me. So now I am talking really fast about how the spots might fill up tomorrow and it's only a summer session so they can try it out without any long commitment, etc. etc. He thinks and tells me where the card is.

So now I KNOW they need shoes - tap and ballet, but my mom wants to buy them for the girls and Payless is having a BOGO sale! Score!

They also needed a pink leotard (Walmart, $7 each - not bad). I had pink tights already - brandy new. My cousin, Felicia, had just given my girls a HUGE bag of dress up clothes that her girls had grown out of - and in that bag were two little ballet skirts. Perfect.

Their class is after dinner, but it's only 10 minutes away so it's plenty of time for them to nap, eat, get dressed and leave. BUT - Maddie fell asleep on the bus on the ride home. So she wouldn't nap. She ended up falling asleep around 3pm, and I really wanted them up at 4:30 so we had an hour to eat and get ready and leave. She didn't want to get out of her crib. She didn't want me to change her diaper. She didn't want to eat and threw a tantrum the likes I have not seen in a long time. I breathed in as deeply as I could - because Katie was starting to get upset, too.

I fed them on couch in front of the TV. I knew they needed to eat if they were going to have to pay attention to a new teacher in a new environment and I was desperate. We managed to get out the door.

Now, as most of my friends will tell you - I am always early. I don't like rushing at all - it makes me all panicky inside and I can't calm down for a while afterwards. So I just get everywhere early and relax while I wait. My girls? Don't relax while we wait.

The waiting room is tiny tiny tiny. It is filled with (very nice) moms putting tap shoes on a bunch of wiggling little 3-year-old girls. I do the same. But now we have like 5 minutes before their class starts which is like eternity to my children. Maddie starts fussing - then she starts whining - then she starts walking back and forth to the studio door crying that she wants to go in RIGHT NOW. I am mortified, but honestly the other moms just looked at me with a "I've been there look."

Finally it's time for them to go in - and they skip off like two of the happy-go-luckiest girls in the world. Like the last five minutes never happened. I am sweating like a pig.

There is a closed circuit television in the room and we get to see the girls in class. Except the TV switches between their class and another class going on at the same time. In three-second intervals. As soon as you've focused - the screen switced again. One mom said she was about to have a seizure.

I did manage to see that they listened and paid attention and had a great time. Even the owner of the studio mentioned that rarely sees a first class of three-year-olds where no one cries and starts freaking out.

Class is about 15 minutes from ending and the waiting room starts filling up with older girls for the next class and the parents to pick up their girls from the current classes. The waiting room is like 10'x16' and it is getting packed. The girls' class ended and we can see them all lining up on the TV so we all stand up. Mayhem begins.

Kids coming out - kids going in - parents everywhere. My girls have never seemed so little. I spot Katie - call her name - and she comes right to me. Maddie? She's following the crowd about to walk out the front door. Seizure mom grabs her for me. She is my new BFF for life.

I had these big dreams of getting a picture of them outside the studio all dressed up and smiling and just oh-so-perfect. I was happy to get these ...

Honestly, I am thrilled that they loved it - because they did! They talked about it the rest of the night and Katie wanted to go back the next day.

So I guess dance class is a go!

But we won't be early anymore.

Giveaway Alert!

2009-06-10T12:08:00.009-04:00

Are you looking to be more eco-friendly with the products you use in your home and on your family?

If the answer is "yes" - I have found a great giveaway for you!

If the answer is "no" - I don't know what to tell ya.

For all you "ayes" out there, take a moment to stop by Multiples ... and More blog network.

They are giving away two products from Ecostore USA. Details on how to enter (you can score multiple entries!) are in their post.

Right now I am slowly moving to more ecofriendly products. Our cleaning supplies are 95% green - 'cause sometimes you just need bleach to disinfect the bad germy messes, sorry to say. I'd like to get into our health products next - especially for the girls. The price tags just scream at me though. So I figure one thing at a time - I'm comfortable with that.

So head on over there and good luck!

A-Z on Mondays: R is for Rules

2009-06-08T22:56:00.006-04:00

OK ... so I think that the A-Z gang is onto V at this point - but I love my "R" idea and I wanted to post about it!

R is for Rules. Around February I noticed that things were getting out of control. Correction: things were already out of control. The girls had officially entered the "two-going-on-three" phase and were testing their limits. I was at my friend Michelle's house (a fellow twin mommy) and she had a nice set of rules hanging up in her playroom. While I didn't copy HER rules, I did copy the idea and hung them on the wall right next to the kitchen table.

The first four rules were first. Maddie had entered a complete shrieking and screaming stage where anytime she was upset - anytime at all - she just lost it and shrieked at the top of her lungs. Ear piercing. So I made rule number one "No Yelling." Well, apparantly yelling does not equate to screaming (or crying for that matter) and I had to add the last two rules.

Maddie (who is already reading - long story ...) read the rules over and over and over and over out loud that first day - and that was that. She had them memorized. Mind you, she didn't follow them. She just knew them.

A few weeks ago we were taking the girls out of the bath and Maddie was getting impatient that we-just-weren't-moving-along-fast-enough. She started fussing and whining and twisting and kicking. It was driving me nuts.

I yelled , "Maddie - no kicking! Number one rule!"

She looked at me - and in the same whining tone of voice said, "No, Mommy! Number one is "No Yelling!"

And continued her tantrum.

Jersey Girl went to see Jersey Boys

2009-06-07T07:13:00.005-04:00

We went to the city today to see Jersey Boys! It was amazing!!! Everyone said I would love it, but I was "eh..." - the commercials didn't do anything for me. Whoa - was I wrong! I laughed, I cried, I was amazed - and I learned Joe Pesce helped get them together in the beginning.

We went to the city early and took the subway to the Upper West Side to walk around. Midtown is yuck - grey and gross. (Sorry Midtown lovers ... just doesn't do it for me.) We ate outside at a nice little Italian restaurant and I had a delicious chicken mozzarella panini. Then we walked over to Central Park and took a nice stroll through the park. It was shady and breezy and perfect.

We got on the subway to get back to 8th Avenue. Now ... the subway is NOT a place I like to be, in any way, shape or form. I managed to walk up and down stairs, get in and out of the trains, sit and stand - without touching a SINGLE THING! Of course I had my Purell just in case - and I used it anyway.

The show was sooooooo great! The actors playing the Four Seasons were wonderful and alive. The show told the story about how they came to be - how they broke up - their relationships with each other - how some of their hit songs almost "weren't". I want to read a bio about them now, just to see how accurate the show was. If you have a chance to see it - GO!

Afterwards we stood by the stage door and met some of the cast and got a ton of autographs! Only two of the leads ended up coming out - and when one saw my cell phone he offered to take his picture with me. Um ... yeah!

(I took a ton of pictures on my cell phone and I have to figure out how to get them on my computer, then I'll post them up!)

I am now watching the Tony Awards as I type - the cast of Jersey Boys will be performing and I just have to see them again. I go to see Mama Mia in a few weeks - so look forward to me gushing again ...!

Step One: Check!

2009-06-06T17:11:00.003-04:00

I took a break and I enjoyed it, I must say. Something that is supposed to be fun should not feel like a chore, right? If I was supporting myself off this blog, like Dooce or Pioneer Woman, and had a ton of advertisers depending on me - well, that would be a different matter, wouldn't it?

I wanted to change up the design for summer and I wanted something nice and bright. I was originally going to use a kit with a ton of primary colors - bright blues and reds and yellows and greens - but it was just not coming together. I started browing the kits I own and saw the daisies and knew it would work. Can I tell you I love this kit so much I accidentally bought it twice? It was one of the first kits I ever bought - and back then I really didn't have a system for categorizing things (not that I do now) so it sort of got lost. Forgot all about it. I saw it months and months later on a digiscrap store site and I didn't even remember that I already had it. It was only AFTER I bought and started downloading it that my computer told me that I already had the filenames and did I wan't to copy over them? Oh well! I like what I like!

So now that the design is updated ... I can start posting again.

And Jana can stop hounding me on Facebook about it.

I'm alive :)

2009-05-23T23:29:00.002-04:00

I am - I really am! Just took a few weeks off, unintentionally! Be back with more Monday. Have a great weekend!

A day for us all

2009-05-10T08:39:00.001-04:00

Happy Mother's Day ...

... and special hugs to all my friends who want to be mothers so badly.

I did a header!

2009-05-07T13:42:00.005-04:00

Hey all! When you get a chance stop by Songbirdtiff - my frugal friend. And I say "frugal" in the nicest way and I know she loves it!

I've been doing my own headers since I started this blog. At first they were just pictures I cropped to size and added my title and description. After I got Photoshop Elements (and after I actually learned how to use it) I started getting a little more creative. I redid my entire blog about a month ago using my new found (and very new) knowledge about digiscrapping. I am basically learning as I go.

Tiffany over at Songbirdtiff wanted to redo her blog - make it more simple and asked me about headers (after my ridiculously long post about digiscrapping). I said "what are you looking for" and she emailed me a pic that she liked. It was the silouette of two birds on a branch.

I searched through my digiscrap files (looking of course at the terms of use!) and found some elements that I thought would work and put together a rough draft of a header for her. I was thinking she could at least get an idea of what it would look like and we could play around for while.

She loved it - almost exactly as it was! She asked me to change the background color and add a border - easy schmeasy. We emailed each other back and forth for a day and she posted it up this morning.

The best part for me was that I taught myself how to do something new (yay!) and I got a chance to work with overlays - which I had never used before. An overlay is a grayscale pattern picture. You overlay it over any color background and it gives the background depth. I used a fabric overlay on her header - so it looks like the background is a piece of fabric rather than just a flat color. Subtle but effective.

So take a visit over to Tiffany's blog - which is full of bargains and ideas to live life in a much simpler (yet not less exciting!) way.

Yaya Face

2009-05-06T09:14:00.005-04:00

I like to blog. I like to read blogs. And I do ... a lot. Usually when the girls nap I am on this computer (if I am not napping myself)!

One of my favorite blog to read is Yaya Stuff - and I must have told the girls one day that I was reading Yaya. Maddie giggled, said "Yaya?" and made the cutest little face, which I affectionately called her Yaya Face.

Now I make her do it all the time! She squishes her little face up all crinkly-like. I love it! I had her pose for a few shots this morning. Enjoy!

"YAYA ROCKS!"

Giveaway over at The Lettered Cottage!

2009-05-05T12:43:00.005-04:00

I saw this giveaway for a burlap table runner through my buddy, Katy's, blog: Fun with the Baker Five. But it's not her giveaway!

I am so glad I saw it though, because the actual purveyor of said giveaway, The Lettered Cottage, is on it's way to being one of my favorite blogs! It is a blog full of beautiful, clean, affordable design ideas. Now that my living room is a tabula rasa, this site, run by Layla (and she says in her profile "yes, for the song") is perfect for me.

Taking it just one more level, Layla did not make this runner. It is made by a woman named Grace, who runs an etsy shop called Coastline. Grace uses burlap in the most beautiful ways imaginable.

So stop by Layla's blog, The Lettered Cottage, to enter this giveaway: http://theletteredcottage.blogspot.com/2009/05/coastline-contest.html

... and also visit Grace's etsy shop to take a peek around: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7044601

Good luck!

A-Z on Mondays: N, O, P, and Q!

2009-05-04T06:00:00.004-04:00

Oh geesh - I am a bad blogger. I need to catch up on my "A-Z on Mondays" posts - sorry, Jen!!!

So let's gooooooooooooooooo .... :)

N is for New Header! Is that a cheat? But it's true - just check out the top of my page and you can see it!

O is for Organic Oranges! Andy's boss owns an organic orange grove in Florida - which means we get a nice pick of whatever he has in season. The girls love all things orange - and they loved these oranges, too ... (Katie is in the top picture and Maddie in the other three)

P is for Poppy! Andy's dad, who Katie and Maddie call Poppy, is hysterical with the girls. He will do anything to make them smile and laugh - and he gets rewarded with giggles everytime. Remember the Boppies from my "B" post? Well ... I like to call this composition "Boppy Poppy" ...

(Don't hate me, Dad!)

And finally ...

Q is for Quote. Here are two of my favorite quotes that my little girls have ever said ...

From Maddie ... about 6 months ago ... with a small little forlorn look on her face ... "I'm scared of afraid." Oh, it just about broke my heart. "Why are you afraid, honey?" Then she looks at me like I'm nuts: "I'm not afraid!" And cracks up.

From Katie ... last summer ... out of the blue one day when we we're looking out into the backyard ... squinting her eyes and tilting her head to the side with a smile on her face ... "Oh, look at that bunny. Oh, he's soooo cute!" She had never said anything like that before - something that was her own original thought about something else. Up until that point she (and Maddie for that matter) would agree with us, repeat us, say simple things. It was amazing to see her put two sentences like that together. We made her say it OVER AND OVER all summer long!

Have a great Monday everyone ... and for more "A-Z on Mondays" visit Jen over at Unglazed!

New Header is Up (and Digiscrapping 101)

2009-05-03T13:07:00.006-04:00

It hit me that it was MAY yesterday! What the heck happened to April? It went by in such a blur between the girls turning three, Easter, and lots of events. Andy and I look at our calendar and shudder - a free weekend is nowhere to be seen.

So I had to get down to business and get up a new header! I kept with the same kit that I used last time, but since it is not a huge kit I didn't have a lot of embellishments to choose from. In the digiscrap world there are lots of (necessary) rules. These rules are called "terms of use."

Some designers give you carte-blanche with their work. Some don't. Kits cost anywhere from $1-$8, and some higher. The higher costing ones are usually huge. Also, almost every designer does regular "freebies" - which help them gain new paying customers.

All of them allow their designs to be used for personal use - meaning your own scrapbooks or gifts you make for others. If a kit is deemed "Personal Use Only" you can't use any of their designs in a way that would make you money. Also, many of these personal kits don't allow you to use their designs on your blog - whether or not you make money off your blog.

A good portion of designers classify their kits as "S4H or S4O Friendly." S4H=Scrap for Hire, and S4O=Scrap for Others. This means you can use their kits in projects you make money off of. (Dangling preposition.) Some have limits of how many of any one item you can make, like 500 cards. Beyond that you would have to purchase another license from them. Also, if a designer doesn't have their kit in this category, you can usually contact them and they will sell you a separate license to use it that way. I have done this - and every single one has been super cool about it! (Some didn't even charge me - they just wanted to know who was doing it.)

For both of those cases above, you can't use any of these designs in a kit you create. If you want to become a designer of digiscrap kits - you can't recolor one of their papers or embellishments and pass it off as your own.

Finally, there is another category called "Commercial Use." This is the most open of the categories. These designs can be altered by you in any way at all and you can include them in your kits that you design. These are usually in patterns, ribbons, buttons, etc. in grayscale and when you add color to them you get really nice depth. It's not uncommon to see the same exact element in a ton of kits - like a basic fence. But each designer recolors it, gives it texture, adds flowers, etc. - and they all come off looking completely different.

Who patrols this whole world? Basically no one. It is mostly on the honor system. Who would know if I made 1000 cards using a kit for "personal use" and tried selling them at a local craft show? Probably no one. But once you see how much time and effort these designers put intot their creations there is no way any self-respecting digiscrapper would! There are sites created to deter Digital Privacy - which is good for beginner digiscrappers to read about.

If you want to look at digiscrap kits, just for fun, my favorite shop is Elemental Scraps.

So ... back to my header. :) I have an Excel spreadsheet where I list (by name and designer) every kit I have. Right now I have over 120. I keep track of who allows their kits to be used for profit, on blogs, etc. I loved the "Little Lady" kit I am using now - and it fit into the "can use for blog" category! Yay! It is a smaller kit, though, so because I didn't have a lot to choose from, I ended up throwing together the header in about 15 minutes. I think I am going to go back and fix it up - the oval pictures on the sides are NOT even with each other and it's driving me nuts!

Once summer hits I think I will change the color scheme. Something bright.

Here are some recent pages I made ... enjoy!

Somewhere pigs are flying, hell is freezing over, and "that'll be the day" is here

2009-05-02T15:53:00.008-04:00

I did yard work.

I finally tore out the dead mums that have been in our front yard since last year. Yes - LAST YEAR. I am not a gardener in any sense of the word. And Mr. Andy Man has enough to take care of with mowing the lawns and such that I never pushed him to do it.

Part of the reason is that I extremely dislike bugs. ((shudder)) And I extremely dislike the heat. But today was such a beautiful day and I wanted the girls to be outside. We had to go to Lowe's to buy Andy a week-wacker and I saw gardening gloves. I threw them in the cart and made the decision that today was going to be the day! Those mums - really dead sticks at this point - were coming out!

It went pretty quickly and I discovered that a nice pair of thick gloves brings my bug tolerance way up. I was even picking out worms for the girls to observe.

While I was working Mr. Andy Man set up the hose and let the girls play with it for a while.

He is taking them for a walk around the neighborhood in the wagon right now. It is a beautiful Saturday. Hope you all are enjoying yours.

Vote for Maddie and Katie!!

2009-05-01T09:17:00.004-04:00

I've been gone again! Aaah!

Actually, not much has been going on here lately - Katie is sick, poor thing. She started with a runny nose - then a cough - now she sounds like Kathleen Turner. (Love it!) (Bad mommy!)

I do have some exciting news, though. A picture of Katie and Maddie was chosen as a finalist (Top 20) in "The Cutest Multiples Photo Contest" over at Multiples ... and More! Please take a sec to drop by and vote - they are number 6. Here is the picture I submitted ....

You can vote once until May 6th - and then once again after May 6th. If they make it to the Top 10 then the voting starts up again. Thanks so much!

In other news, Maddie is doing so well in school. She gets on the bus with no problem at all - which is such a relief to me. I don't know if I could have handled it if she was crying everyday. I get a note from her teacher almost everyday in her "Communication Notebook" (love it!) that tells me what she is doing in school and HOW she is doing. Apparently the word "no" was used by her quite often that first week!

We are almost done painting the base molding and we started putting some of the furniture back into place. Andy went nuts with those sticky felt pads on the bottom of everything. Now the chairs sliiiiide so nicely across the dining room floor. I want to get a big area rug for the living room so the girls can play without me holding my breath the whole time. Still no living room furniture in our future ... but I don't mind.

I am holding a garage sale here for my multiples club on May 9th and we are sooooo excited to clear some of the (still good) junk out of this place.

Thanks for voting for the girls!!! Spread the word!!!

So - have a great weekend everyone! And vote!!! :)

Katie and Mama's Special Days

2009-04-24T10:01:00.005-04:00

Katie has been pretty good about Maddie being in school all morning five days a week. She just accepted it - and knows that now she and I can have "special days" - which she tells everyone about:

"Ka-teee an' Mama got a BA-gul on our specia' day." We did this the first day Maddie was gone, so now she expects one every day. They are so good - but too many carbs for Rosie!

"Ka-teee an' Mama made tamBOReeeenes on our specia' day."

"Ka-teee an' Mama go to tha pahk on our specia' day!" That was this morning. I forgot my camera so I don't have any pics - sorry!

Of course we stopped to get a BA-gul first.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Floors - from start to finish!

2009-04-23T14:32:00.007-04:00

Hey! I finally sorted through all the floor pictures and pulled out the best ones for the slideshow below.

It all began Monday night, the day after Easter, when Mr. Andy Man started ripping up the rug. I have never smiled so much in my life. :) He went through it all pretty quickly - he cut the rug and padding up into smaller pieces - put it out in big bags for the garbage men - and it was gone by morning.

The workers (henceforth to be known as The Men - dubbed by Katie and Maddie) arrivecd Tuesday morning bright and early. The old plywood in the dining room was the first to go - and since there is only an empty crawl space underneath it, The Men just jumped down and stood on it so they didn't have to break their backs!

They were able to lay all the plywood down in the dining room and then they started ripping out the old hardwood floor in the living room. It was not in good shape, so I am glad we decided to go with new wood rather than try to salvage the old. All I heard for the rest of the afternoon was creaking wood being RIPPED out and there were nails everywhere. (Somehow, someway, the girls were able to nap everyday through the racket. The Men were impressed.) By the time they left on Tuesday only the subflooring was left in the living room. And of course they sweeped up. :)

Wednesday was the day everything happened! The Men tore through that subflooring and that's how I got the pictures looking down into my basement! The dust, of course, migrated right down there and I couldn't even walk. I figured Andy had a night of cleaning ahead of him. But why did I doubt The Men? They went down there with their Shopvac and cleaned it all up.

The plumber came on Wednesday, too, to fix a valve that was leaking, so that was a fun way for us to spend $180 and blow my budget for the month. Grrr....

Thursday went fast - all the new hardwood was down by the end of the day. It was great! The Men's backs were killing them though - I could tell. That nailer that they use to nail the wood to the floor is hefty - and they had to swing a mallet onto it twice for each nail. Two of them switched on and off - and got it all done. (I offered Advil - but they didn't want it.)

They came back Friday morning to put in new baseboards and fix some odds and ends here and there. I was out all morning so I never even saw them that day - so no pics of that, sorry!

Now the girls look for The Men every day and say, "The Men have to fix the floor" with big wide eyes, like "Mommy, where are they???" I tell them The Men are all done - and that we will see them again at the end of the summer when we get a new front door. (Hopefully!!!)

Here is a slideshow of the job from start to finish. (In case you catch the slideshow halfway through, the first pic is a shot of the living room fireplace with the rug rolled up in the middle and boxes of wood everywhere.) We still need to get throwrugs and put all the furniture back - I'll take those pics when that is all done. Say ... sometime next year ...

Enjoy! (After I downloaded the pics and made the slideshow I realized I downloaded them too small! Aargh! I'm not downloading them again, so you'll have to squint.)

Dear Life, Can I have mine back now? Please?

2009-04-22T16:53:00.004-04:00

Oh my goodness! I feel like I have been kept away from my computer for so long. It's usually past 11pm at night when I get the chance to REALLY get on (Facebook doesn't count - that's mindless).

Not only have I been cleaning up after getting our floors done (so nice and shiny!) I also was cajoled into reading Twilight by my friend, Carol. So I read the first one with a bit of trepidation. I am a huge sci-fi fan, as many of you already know, and I heard that Twilight was a teen novel - so I thought - how good could it be? Well, lemme tell ya ....

Sooooo goooood.

It took me 8 days to read all four books. I fell in love with them. I usually take advantage of the girls' naptime to do computer stuff. But not this past week! I sat in my glider and just read. And then I sat in bed at night and read. Until 1:30am. I am sad that I read them all and it's over - but glad that I will have some semblance of a life again!

Thanks for all the comments while I was away - I miss you guys!

Houston, We Have a Floor

2009-04-17T14:21:00.002-04:00

Yippee! The floors are all down. This picture (from yesterday) shows the guys laying it down in the living room - but both rooms are completed at this point. They are beautiful!

The guys are coming back on Monday to finish up the base moulding (molding?) and finish up odds and ends. We will have to do come paint retouchups here and there but no big deal.

They are vacuuming as I type (always love seeing men vacuum) and I will take some pics when they leave and post up!

(I have not been much of a blog-reader this past week - but I'll catch up soon!)

Updated: My Life Today

2009-04-15T15:06:00.005-04:00

Update (6:16pm) - It's all covered up with plywood now. The living room and dining room both look like this:

It's actually not that bad. My kitchen has stayed intact, and it's always worse if you don't have a kitchen. Tomorrow they laydown another layer of plywood and then the hardwood. So exciting!

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Standing in my living room looking down into my basement.

Standing in my basement looking out my front door.

The plumber. Who had to be called when the builders found that a valve was leaking on my furnace.

What will my day be like tomorrow? :)

I am living in chaos!

2009-04-14T13:15:00.002-04:00

Aaargh! My house is a big 'ole mess!

As I type we are having our brandy-new hardwood floor installed. The house is a mess. Even though it is only two rooms the dust is just everywhere. The noise is everywhere, too. BUT ... I ain't complaining - when all is said and done I will have beautiful flooring!

Why does it seem I don't blog the first week of every month? I am the Newsletter Editor for my local twin club and the newsletter gets emailed to our members by the 7th of every month. So, the days before that are usually filled with me waiting to get articles from people, formatting pages, and then pulling it all together at the last minute. I do it all digitally and it gets emailed to everyone as a pdf file. Unfortunately this blog suffers in the process. And I've said it before and I'll say it again - when I get out of the habit of blogging every day/every other day - it takes me a bit to get back in the groove.

We had a wonderful birthday party for the girls - and a wonderful Easter, too. I hope you all had a wonderful Passover or Easter, whatever you celebrate!

I'm getting my slideshows together and I'll post them up when I'm done.

A-Z on Mondays: M is for Maddie! AND .... Happy Birthday to My Girls!!!

2009-04-06T13:29:00.015-04:00

Lots of business today!

FIRST ... Happy Birthday to my little girls!!! Katie and Maddie are three years old today! It is a crappy rainy day here - but we are celebrating inside. We had a kiddie party Saturday night with their cousins and I'll post all about it tomorrow!

SECOND ... We are at M in our A-Z journey - and of course today is all about Maddie.

Today was Maddie's first day of school. I always knew that I would separate the girls once they started school - and I even went so far as to find different schools for them. Their needs are so different and I wanted to make sure that they would each be in the best environment for them.

Maddie likes small groups. She really gets absorbed in her tasks and doesn't flit from one activity to the next. Her memory is amazing - she can recite whole books from beginning to end after only reading them once or twice!

So I found a school for her that has a very small student/teacher ratio - in fact there are only 5 other kids in her class. Perfect for Maddie! They take the kids for preschool when they turn three (not just in September - Katie won't start until then) and she didn't have to be potty trained - BONUS! I'll do a more detailed post later this week - but she LOVED it today. Her smiles do not lie! :)

My heart was breaking when I left her at school today - but I am so excited to see her blossom. I have always said that Katie is my "big girl" and Maddie is my "baby" - and my baby is growing up. I am totally crying again.

From birth to today ... Maddie ...

This last picture was taken this just this afternoon as she was getting off the bus!

I love you forever, baby.

(For more A-Z on Mondays, visit Jen over at Unglazed!)

Do you see this?

2009-04-02T20:03:00.001-04:00

My mom tells me that she can't see my whole screen on her computer at work. She says the header is too large and she doesn't see past the ric rac ribbon - so she doesn't get to see the pretty flowers down the sides. Hmmm ...?

What do you see? It should look like the pic above. Let me know - thanks!

Everytime I look at them I wish I had a sister

2009-04-02T05:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, just as the girls were ready to wash their hands after lunch - I had to go. And I mean GO. It just hit me out of nowhere.

I managed to get Katie unstrapped from her booster seat and washed - but the running water just killed me. I was determined to push through! I got Maddie unbuckled - and I hit the wall.

"Mommyhastogopottyrightnowdon'tmove!" and I ran.

I could hear them jabbering away the whole time, and since I knew Maddie couldn't get down from her chair by herself I wasn't too worried. "Givemetwoseconds!"

Then I hear the water running at the sink. Uh oh. "I'mcoming!"

I get back to the kitchen and see the two of them standing on a chair in front of the sink. Katie has a paper towel and is drying off Maddie's hands. They both look over to me and smile big grins.

Miss Katie proceeds to tell me the tale ... "I got Maddie from da seat. I wash-ad herr haaands. All done!" And she throws the paper towel in the garbage can.

She was so proud - and so was I.

Whew! New layout is here!

2009-03-31T19:27:00.003-04:00

My new layout is finally here! You notice I didn't say, "My new layout is finally done!" - because it is not. Ugh.

As most of you know, I attempted to this whole thing myself - basically by using tutorials all over the web. Then when my computer crashed a few weeks ago, I lost all the tutorial sites I was using. The basics were done - column, etc. - but I am having trouble with the headings of each section.

Basically they should all look like the "About Me" and "Layout Design" blurbs. The picture is right above it, part of the "gadget" (as Blogger calls it). I can't figure out how to do the same to my followers, blogs I read, awards, and more that I will be adding. Right now I just added the headers in as a picture gadget - which causes them to float way above that blurb and not really look like a part of it.

Anyone know how I can fix this?

I will still be changing the header each month to update the girls pictures, and will probably just change the background designs with the seasons.

Sooooooooooooooo ... tell me what you think!

Circa 1991

2009-03-31T05:00:00.002-04:00

Someone please tell me why my cheeks needed to see better.

A-Z on Mondays: L is for Laugh

2009-03-30T05:00:00.000-04:00

Katie and Maddie laugh all the time. They are just little boxes of giggles with bows on top. They are getting much better at posing for me for pictures - except when they start cracking up!

Their newest "thing" is to take all their plush into the living room and line them up in the picture window and play store. It was so cute I wanted to take some pictures.

Then I decided since I was getting such a shadow, I'd stick them on the other wall and take some closeups. Mayhem ensued.

They were laughing. I was laughing. It was awesome.

Come back next week for "M" - and for more "A-Z on Mondays" visit Jen over at Unglazed!

I forgot how bad paint smells

2009-03-25T08:51:00.002-04:00

The living room is almost done! Just three coats left (one on ceiling, two on walls) plus some touch ups here and there. The wall on the stairs probably won't be done in time for the girls' party - but as long as the main area is done I'll be happy.

Once the party is over we will put the boxes of hardwood (which are now in our garage) into the living room and dining room so they can acclimate to to the temp in here. I'm hoping to have the guys come back on the 13th or so to start that. Demo is going to be another mess - we have to rip up the existing hardwood in the living room first. "Why are you ripping up hardwood to put some right back down again, Rose?" I hear you all saying.

Our dining room is an addition (completed way before we got here) and there is only subfloor under the carpet. We are laying down prefinished hardwood (so we don't have to go through the whole sanding/laquering mess) and if we don't change the flooring in the living room then the two rooms won't match. They have a common floor that flows into each room. It'll just look plain silly.

We had the prefinised hardwood in the townhouse and we loved it. It's 100% real wood, so in the future if we decided to sand and refinish we can still do that.

Here are some pics of the guys in action - and Andy putting up the insulation. My favorites are when they are vacuuming my floor. :)

Uncle Matt and Aunt Jenny visit

2009-03-24T09:51:00.004-04:00

About a month ago Andy's brother and his wife, Matt and Jenny, came to visit us all and spend some time with the girls. They haven't seen them since they were a couple of months old and they were blown away by how big the girls are now! Matt is a doctor in the Air Force and Jenny is an auditor like Andy. They are stationed in Mississippi now, but will most likely be moving again in the next couple of years.

Andy's parents came over and we all had a great couple of days together. Maddie started playing with them right away - and although it took Katie a little longer to warm up, once she did they all had a great time!

Aunt Jenny had done her research and wanted to take the girls to the NJ Children's Museum in Paramus. We went right as they opened on a Sunday morning and it was wonderful. It's a big hands-on museum with themed rooms - castle, music, medicine, kitchen, fire engine, science, crafts, space, sand, computers, house, etc. They had a great time (Maddie had trouble moving from one room to the next - but she was fine once she started playing in the new room).

Here is a little slide show of their visit ... and we really hope to see them again soon!

A-Z on Mondays: K is for Katie

2009-03-23T05:00:00.001-04:00

K is for Katie.

I picked out the name Katherine when I was just a little girl. I always knew it would be the name of my first daughter.

Katie is like me in so many ways - and so different from me at the same time. I love her spirit and independence, although I know that means she will one day want to leave me and explore the world. She has curiosity. She has will and determination. She wants to do it all - and all by herself. I am so proud of her and I can't wait to see the woman she will become. I am totally crying right now.

From birth to today ... Katie ...

I love you forever, kid.

(For more "A-Z on Mondays" visit Jen over at Unglazed!)

Changes are a comin'

2009-03-21T22:42:00.004-04:00

I finally figured out how to redesign my own blog! Yay! I got my three column layout (I loved yours so much, Tiff, afraid it's a bit of a copy - hope you don't mind!) and I designed the background and header myself. I will reveal all in April ... but here is a tease ...

I really want to be able to do a new header for each month, like I always have - but I don't know if that will entail a new background every month. Things that make you go "hmmmm ..."

Who left the freezer door open?

2009-03-20T17:01:00.005-04:00

Um ... that would be me.

OK, not MEEEEE - but a too-large Carvel ice cream cake box. I walked down to the basement this afternoon to get some water from the extra fridge we keep down there. On the floor - aforementioned Carvel box - and the top freezer door WIDE OPEN. Everything soft and warm as could be. And smelly.

I called Andy to see if he went down to the basement in the morning - at least to get an idea of how long it was open (for energy purposes - the food is beyond saving) and he hadn't been down there all morning. Which means the door was open since probably last night. Ugh.

There really wasn't anything in there that was super expensive - I didn't start shopping for food for the girls party yet (see post below) - thank goodness. But still!

Garbage doesn't pick up until Tuesday, so we decided to just close the door - TIGHT - and empty it out Monday night. We have too many animal critters who would have a feast. I'll wash it out then, too and hopefully it won't be too smelly.

Then I can start filling it back up! hehehehehehehe ....

My babies are almost three - when did that happen?

2009-03-20T05:00:00.001-04:00

Most of you know that after Andy and I were married we were unable to get pregnant for two years. I now know that two years is not that long of a time. I have read incredible stories from many blog friends who have been trying for much longer. But at the time I had no other perspective - none of my friends had any problems - so two years were an eternity. We finally were able to have our baby girls through IVF and are so thankful everyday.

The girls are turning three in less than a month and it blows my mind! Where did my little babies go? Katie, especially, is growing bigger and bigger everytime I look at her. She is close to two inches taller than Maddie at this point. (Maddie is destined to have her mother's body type - poor thing!)

We are celebrating with their cousins (second cousins, really - they have no first cousins, yet) in a few weeks and I decided to make their invitation Check it out ...

I am a digiscrapper now and I thought, "I can do this" - and do this I did. I used a kit called "Birthday Bash" by Nikki Scott. You can find her products at Elemental Scraps, an online Digiscrap store I spend a good chunk of time browsing.

The theme is "The Wonder Pets" - and I am so excited. We all love the show - Andy and I can sit through them and crack up the whole time. That little Ming Ming is just adorable. I found a picture on the web and copied and pasted it. The colors of the kit match it perfectly.

I have lots of planning to do!!!!!

Oh no, I napped

2009-03-19T21:21:00.003-04:00

Nooooooooo! I fell asleep at around 4:30 for an hour! Bad Rose! The girls were playing so nicely - they love playing with Little People and small plastic figures. They set them up in a ton of situations - mostly from whatever books or TV shows we recently read/saw - and squeek cute little dialog back and forth to each other. They were so calm and peaceful I drifted off on the recliner. So now we shall see what tonight is like. My Aunt Audrey suggested (in my comments) to get Simply Sleep by Tylenol, and my question for those of you who take it is this (or Bendryl) ... how often can I take it without it being a bad thing? Don't want to get addicted! And I would! :)

The girls were really cute today. Katie is in a "put little things in a bag/box/basket and tote them around the room. So she'll gather things in groups - play utensils, or these small letters we have, or large beads for stringing - and put them in whatever container she is attached to for the day - preferable with a handle. Then she gets dressed up in this pink princess dress that is all ripped apart (poor princess!), a hat that is too small for her but she squishes it on anyway, whatever stray bibs are laying around, and her bag of loot. She struts around from place to place and just does her thing. It cracks us up.

Maddie has a memory like no other. She can memorize a book or a show after just seeing it once. I kid you not. So she'll take her Little People and Sesame Street figures and acts out what is in her head. The girls are on a "Little Bear" kick and her figures were acting out one of the episodes today. I just sit and watch her - it's amazing.

(Oh - and I am totally doing "rest time" when they give up their naps! Thanks for the suggestions, Yaya and Saf!)

Sleeping

2009-03-19T12:48:00.002-04:00

Thank you all so much for your advice. I think I tried about each and every thing suggested (and WHAT a suggestion that was, Safire!) - haha!

I went to bed about 10:30 and was still up at midnight. I have a cold in the back of my throat and it is making me snore snore snore. So everytime I started to fall asleep, I started to snore and woke myself up! This happened in 30 second intervals. I was laughing and crying at the same time. I was still up at 1am so I walked around the house a bit, and finally gave in at 1:30 and took a Tylenol PM. Of course all I want to do now is nap, but I won't. Let's see if sheer exhaustion works tonight!

Speaking of sleep, the girls are JUST starting to fight me at nap time. They go down at 1pm everyday, and they usually just totter up the stairs when I tell them "naptime!" without a fuss. Not this week! They are crying and screaming their little hearts out the whole walk upstairs. I would think they are ready to give it up (oh please, Lord, no) but they still fall asleep within a few minutes of me closing the door. So I figure as long as they still actually sleep, they'll still get a nap.

Once they stop napping I don't know what will become of me ...

:)

Updated: How do you fall asleep?

2009-03-18T10:38:00.004-04:00

Please, I need help! I just can't seem to fall asleep normally - it can take me up to an hour. Then - if I wake up at night for any reason at all - noise, girls, bathroom - it takes me another hour to fall asleep again.

I've been up since 4am and this happens all too often.

Anyone been through this before? Any advice? Thank you all so very much from the bottom of my heart.

Update: Thank you all who commented. Caffeine has been gone from my diet for a long time, although I admit the sugar is still here! :)

I do think that a lot of it has to do with my mind racing at a mile a minute and I can't slow it down. I think of all the things I forgot to do and get stressed. Tylenol PM has worked for me, but I don't want to have to take it every night, you know? I'm going to try relaxing and praying, as almost all of you suggested, and just see how it goes. I'll let you know what happens tonight!

(Thank goodness for Tivo - I don't have to miss any of my shows if I go to bed early!)

Thank you!

2009-03-17T08:52:00.007-04:00

I received another award! I love this one - I love how Kreativ is spelled with a K and missing the E. I love the color scheme. I love the font. Just too cute.

A big thank you goes out to Impulsive Addict, who recently drank one to many mimosas. :) Thank you so much!!!

Here are the rules: List 7 things that you love and then pass the award on to 7 people...tagging them and letting them know they won! You can copy the picture of the award and put it on your sideboard letting the whole wide world know you are.

Aside from loving my family and friends, here are my other 7 loves (all materialistic because I am in a fun lovin' mood, not a sappy one right now!):

1. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Fresh ones. Stale ones where the peanut butter is all powdery are gross.

2. Digiscrapping. It's my new love, my new obsession. I want to find a way to do it for a living.

3. Vera Bradley. Her bags make me happy and make me smile. I get a new catalog and I'm like a little girl, running up to Andy "Can I get this one ... and can I get this one?"

4. Firm pillows. Maybe it has something to do with my bad neck and bad back - but what is the point of a super soft down pillow? Your head just sinks into the pillow and is flat on the mattress! And you can't breathe! I travel with my pillow - we got a big enough suitcase JUST so my pillow will fit into it along with my clothes. And yes - I will sacrifice some outfits if the pillow won't fit.

5. Crossstitching. I miss it. I used to do it EVERY NIGHT before I had the girls. When I got pregnant and stopped working (at about 3 months along) I had big dreams of just sitting on the couch crossstitching all day long. But for some reason I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't follow the pattern - my eyes got all dizzy! Then of course once the girls were born sleep was the preferred recreational activity! :) I need to start up again. I am about 1/3 way through one for the girls room. Two little girls having a tea party with their dolls. So pretty. (I found a picture of it on the web! Here is what it will look like finished!)

6. I would say Facebook, but I am not pleased with their new layout. So I will say I love the OLD FB layout. The new one is boring.

7. I love that we HAVE to get the living room painted by April 4th - which is the girls' 3rd birthday party. I love that having a due date kicks Andy's cute little butt in gear.

I am passing this on to all of you! I think you ALL deserve it - so take it and say it's from me!

A-Z on Mondays: J is for Jumping for Joy

2009-03-16T12:29:00.002-04:00

(Hi everyone. I always feel this need to explain where I've been when I haven't blogged in a while, and the answer is usually: just plain busy. Busy with the girls, busy with Twin Club, busy with the house. I get such a feeling of guilt when I don't blog or make comments on your blogs - like I am letting you guys down or something - which I know is just silly. Blogging should be fun! So, if I go through busy times when I don't blog, please know that I am thinking of you all and I'll be back when I can!)

This week, J stands for Jumping for Joy! I won a giveaway! A cool giveaway! A big thanks to Tiffany over at Songbirdtiff! Lots of exclamation points!!!

Through Tiffany, I won a 16x20 poster print from www.onlineposterprinting.com - now all I have to do is decide which of my pictures I should get blown up! I am thinking it should be something from the past year with my new camera, since the resolution is sharper than my old camera, but we shall see.

Have a great day everyone - I plan on doing lots of reading today and making lots of comments.

A-Z on Mondays: I is for "It's a Small World" (and a winner!)

2009-03-09T06:00:00.003-04:00

A big congratulations to Liz (TidBits from Liz) who made the first correct guess! You won the surprise prize! Send me your address (to madkatblog@yahoo.com) and I'll get it out to you ASAP. Honorable mention goes to Safire - right ride, wrong park! :)

These pictures were from our Honeymoon in Disneyworld in July 2003. I worked for Disney for almost 5 years (before I knew Andy) and had fabulous discounts and perks (which no longer exist to the same extent, I hear). We would get 2 free tickets a year, close to 50% off our hotels, and 30% off all food and shopping. It was hard not to go - and "go" I went - about 3 or 4 times a year. Andy, however, had not been there since he was a little kid. He was just as excited to go as I was ... and I think he had the most fun out of the two of us.

It rained almost everyday we were there, but you expect that in Disney - it usually last about 15-20 minutes in the middle of the day and then it's over. All the weaklings leave and you get a nice empty park for a couple of hours. But it rained HARD for us - and two days it rained almost the whole day. We were troopers, though, and just got wet. I even got my hair cut off at the Grand Floridian so I didn't have to worry about the humidity.

One night it poured, and Andy wanted to ride It's a Small World over and over and over and over ... and over. He loved it, and I loved him - so I went along for the ride. He had me adjust the setting on our camera and take picture after picture of him making this face. He is a crack.

(The third picture was with the flash - no fun.)

We were there for 10 days and had a great time. We always look at our honeymoon pictures and smile.

Congratulations, Liz!

Computer back up and running

2009-03-06T06:00:00.001-05:00

Thank you, Mr. Andy Man! Thank you for buying me an external hard drive for Valentine's Day. If it were not for that - and for backing up my entire system for me - I would have lost each and every single picture of our lives together since we met.

Pictures us dating ...

Pictures of our wedding ...

Pictures of us in our first home ...

Pictures of Daisy Cat ...

Pictures of the girls ...

Pictures like this ...

... that would be irreplaceable.

(Can you guess where (specifically) this last pic was taken? And I mean be specific. Prize to the first correct guess. Don't know what the prize will be yet.)

I wish I lived in the Midwest (next week)

2009-03-05T12:43:00.002-05:00

Sigh ...

Pioneer Woman is holding a contest for 4 winners to visit her at her ranch next week (in Oklahoma) for a baking demonstration from Bakerella ... two of my favorite bloggers in one place and the unrealistic possibility of me being able to be there.

Assuming I would even win.

Which I would.

Because I wouldn't be able to go!

Of course I would win!

I feel like Maddie, in the yellow.

If you could live anywhere in the world next week - where would it be? Yes, just next week!

Updated: Did anyone else get this email?

2009-03-04T09:27:00.002-05:00

I got an email from a student at Washington University looking to conduct a study about personality types among bloggers (or something of the sort). Anyone else get something similar? It kind of intrigues me ...

Update: Well, I took the questionnaire! I was at one point a graduate student in a psych program and I remember how hard it was to get participants. I went to the website to check it out first, and then went to work. It was interesting! I answered about 315 questions like, "Do you like to take risks?" "Do you have mood swings?" "Are you an organized person?" etc, and then I received my score on 5 different scales. (Which I am still trying to figure out if I should post for you all to see into the depths of my soul! Haha!)

If you are interested ... here is the link ... http://e-xperiments.org/personality/

One award and 25 other things

2009-03-03T08:59:00.007-05:00

I know that I have been remiss about passing on the awards I've received - and that is just inexcusable! But I also have forgotten some of them ... sorry ... so if you've sent me something and I never posted it - give me a yell. I mean that literally - yell at me to get my butt in gear!

I received the award above from one of my very first blog friends, Darla! Thank you, Darla - I love it! I don't have a sister, so my friendships are very important to me - and a sisterhood award from one of them is awesome.

I would like to pass this award on to any of my readers who don't have a sister. (Anyone out there?) I'd love to know if you accept it - let me know!

And as an added bonus, I am going to include one of those corny"25 things about me" ... just 'cause you can't get enough of me!

1. I met Andy on July 31, 2001 when I was working at Barnes & Noble - he was a customer. We were friends first, and then started dating in February 2002. We were engaged 4 months later and were married in July 2003. He is the most fantastic husband and father and he is my best friend.

2. After trying to have kids for two years we knew it would not come easy. It took us three (failed) IUIs and one (successful!) IVF to have our twin girls. I’ve had more needles stuck in me than a pin cushion.

3. I am a steak and potatoes girl.

4. I am a blogger. I never managed to put together baby albums for the girls, so the blog is a journal of our lives. I love it.

5. I miss cooking. I used to cook all the time before the girls (and sleep deprivation) came along. I stick to the usual menu plans now. I keep promising myself I will start up again!

6. Although I do soooo love eating out.

7. I regret not getting my teaching degree in college. I actually did teach for 4 years and was just looking into getting my certificate through alternate route when we finally got pregnant and I decided I wanted nothing more than to stay home with the girls.

8. We hope to have one more child to complete our crazy life!

9. When all the kids are in school, I plan on going back myself for graphic design, specifically for the web. I’d like to open my own Web Design business. (What happened to teaching, Rose???)

10. TIVO is the best invention – EVER.

11. I am glad that I am a member of my local twin club. I have met so many great moms and I love being involved in something I really care about.

12. I keep my house really cold. Really. My friends know to bring a sweater.

13. My desk is a mess – papers, books, coupons are in lots of tiny piles. I do a major clean up every few months that usually only lasts a week.

14. My mom is my personal superhero. She comes over every day after work to help me with the girls – and has done so since they were born. (It really helps during tax season when Andy works late nights and Saturdays.)

15. My girls are the reason I was born.

16. I love reading science fiction. Always have. Right now I am reading the “Dragonrider” series by Anne McCaffrey. (And I can't wait to see the new Star Trek movie.)

17. I regret hurting people – especially past friends. I made a lot of stupid decisions about stupid things that seemed to matter so much at the time. I see some of these people on Facebook and want to apologize, but have no clue how it will be received.

18. At the same time I have so many good memories of my friends that make me laugh out loud and I wonder if they remember them, too.

19. I love to gamble – small amounts. Just for fun. Put me in front of the craps table and I’ll play the minimum all night – and win. (I love playing BINGO, too, and hope to find a friend who meet me at the local Catholic Church one night and play for real!)

20. I love Vera Bradley – she makes the most beautiful quilted bags in beautiful colors and styles. I have over 20 of them. Andy is happy that I am not into Coach.

21. I cried every day the first week we moved into this house. I missed my townhouse so much and I wanted to start looking for a new home immediately. I drove Andy nuts. I do love it now – and I am thankful we have a home to keep us safe.

22. Nothing makes me angrier than poor customer service. I have written more complaint letters than I can count. Poor product upsets me, too. I got Home Depot to re-carpet our entire upstairs after the original carpet they sold us started to show wear after two months. Lots of letters and phone calls over three months but totally worth it.

23. I love watching Family Guy.

24. I don’t drink – just don’t care for it. I have no problem if people are drinking around me (not morally against it or anything) – but I get very uncomfortable being around people who are drunk. Don’t like it.

25. Andy and I are opposite in many ways – but totally alike in the things that really matter. And our birthdays are only one day apart.

I'd love it if anyone else did their "25 things" - c'mon ... you know you have one!

Updated: A-Z on Mondays: H is for Help

2009-03-01T20:40:00.005-05:00

I crashed my laptop. I could just say, "My laptop crashed" - but that would be a fib. I downloaded a digiscrap freebie and I think that'swhat did it.

The good news is I just backed up all my documents and pictures Friday morning - so I have not lost a thing! (Just some digiscrap layouts - which is not bad at all in the scheme of things. I'll take it!) Andy got me a removable hard drive for Valentine's Day - best present ever!

I am working on his computer now - which I am totally not used to and have no pictures on - but I will post the updates as we go. Andy thinks that all the files are still there - we found them in DOS mode - and just the operating system is screwed up. We shall see!

Update: Andy had to reformat the entire drive. I did end up losing all those digiscrap files, 12 of them, which I spent all day Saturday doing. My friend Carol and I went to an all-day crop. I know I should be thankful that I didn't lose anything else - but I am still sad.

Update 2: My computer is back up and running. We reloaded all my software this morning - and then took the girls outside to play in the snow! I took a ton of pictures - which I immediately downloaded and picked one out to be my new header. It's similar to the January one - but it's all I got right now! :)

The girls had a great time in the snow - and didn't want to come inside at all. I am going to make a slideshow and post it tomorrow - too many to post now!

Well, OK ... here are a few ...

Some things are really organized and some things are really not

2009-02-25T10:19:00.003-05:00

I just did my monthly (or so) clean-up of my "Favorites" folder on my computer. I must favorite about 20 things a day - even if it's something I think I may only need once ever again and it was easy to find when I searched it in the first place. I have been favoriting digiscrap sites like crazy lately, especially the ones with the really great freebies. Some of the designers are totally my style - realistic looking designs - the elements look like the real thing ... while other designers are much too cartoony for me. I favorite them anyway, though!

I have a ton of folders, and they are all named crazy things. "So so sites" ... "Things to read when I'm bored" ... "Wacky Blogs" ... just to name a few. So now it is all nice and organized and I can find my wacky blogs whenever I so choose.

What is not organized in my life right now is my inventory! You know - the things you need to keep a house (and family) running on a daily basis. Like toliet paper. And razors. I am down to two rolls of the former and using a throwaway worthy version of the latter. As in it needs to be thrownaway. My favorite soap is all gone (Dove) so I am using Andy's Lever 2000 which does NOT leave my skin feeling sliky smooth. It leaves my skin feeling like a rubber tire. I have the feeling he uses my Dove - which is why I feel like I buy it all the time but never have any at all - and then pulls out the L2000 when there's nothing else left. If you like the Dove, use the Dove! Let's stop buying the rubber soap!

Andy works late every night (tax season) and we have a Stop'n'Shop close by, so he'll call me before he leaves (9:30pm-ish) to see if we need bananas and milk - staples for the little ladies. I never remember to tell him we need about a dozen other things, too.

So I am going to do inventory today, just like when I worked at The Disney Store, and send a list over to Mr. Andy Man. Except LOST is on tonight, so he won't go to the store until tomorrow.

One more day of rubber skin.

"We're back online, sir."

2009-02-24T09:01:00.002-05:00

So glad my comments are working again!

(I tried to write to my resourceful recycler Songbirdtiff, but her comments weren't working, either. So if you are reading this Tiff - I have lots to say!)

Comments not working?

2009-02-23T21:25:00.002-05:00

For some reason my comment section is being screwed up by the word verification - so I am going to take it off for now. I have been experiencing the same thing on other blogs, and it usually fixes itself if I enter some random letters and hit enter. It gives me an error message and lets me try again, which usually fixes it.

Let's see! :)

A-Z on Mondays: F is for "F" and G is for "Godchildren"

2009-02-23T12:21:00.010-05:00

Well - I missed last week's F - so I wanted to catch up!

1. F is for F. Don't be confused - I am talking about the sign for the letter F! I taught the girls a bit of sign language from when they were baby babies. I used it when I was talking to them and I had a great picture book I read to them a couple times a day that went over some basic signs, too. We learned a whole bunch of signs like book, house, thank you, please (we still use those two), and a bunch of animals. Also, I would sing and sign the alphabet to them at every meal. The book said they would pick the signs up quickly, and they were right!

We don't do signs as much as we used to - but if I quiz them they still know a lot of them - including the whole alphabet. For some reason, Katie has an affinity for the sign for the letter "F" - which is basically the "OK" sign.

"F" is a bit like her imaginary friend. She puts "F" into all types of situations. And then she tells me what "F" is doing.

"F is a ballderina, Mommy!"

"F is sliding!"

"F is eading the cookie."

"I love F, mommy." (I think I need to start dressing her in something beside this light green shirt ... those were all from different days!)

2. "G" is for Godchildren. When I was in my 20s, I thought I would never have any Godchildren. I had no sisters - and I figured my brothers' future wives would choose Godmothers from their side of the family. Then BANG - over the next few years I was asked to be Godmother to FIVE of the most beautiful children in the world! (I tried to get the most current pictures I could find ...)

First we have Carolina ... her parents are my cousins and his wife. I was so excited! (When she was a baby she looked just like Boo from Monsters, Inc.) And my theory was blown through the roof because my cousin is the guy.

Second is Grace ... her mom was one of my college roommates, and Andy became good friends with her husband, too. I was so surprised about this one! She calls me her Fairy Godmother. Her mom, Jana, is Maddie's Godmother.

Third is the one and only boy, Dominic, - so I can say he is my favorite Godson! I was jumping for joy at this point! His parents are another one of my guy cousins and his wife. (I am really close to her and Carolina's mom, too.)

Fourth is Sydney ... her mom is my partner in crime forever, Carol. We became friends through work and realized that although people would say we are totally different, we lived through many of the same experiences and it brought us really close. We were pregnant at the same time - and we waddled around NJ together. (Sydney is two months older than my girls.) She just turned 3 last month ...

The littlest one is Sofia - she is Grace's younger sister. I am the go-to Godmother for that family! Jana asked me again and I was just as excited as when she asked me to be Gracie's. Sofia is the spitting image of her father.

I love being a Godmother to all these children - and secretly hope there are more to come!

Come back next Monday for "H" and visit Jen over at Unglazed for more "A-Z on Mondays" participators!

Layouts and Misspellings

2009-02-19T12:47:00.004-05:00

I am attempting to change the layout of Twice as Nice all by myself. Basically I'm too cheap to hire someone and I knew I could do it if I just had some instruction! I found a site that took me step by step on how to create a three column layout - and have both columns to the side. (I am trying this all on a test site that I made up - that's why you don't see it here.)

It worked out great and I really like it! Now I am trying to put up a background that I also made myself and I am stuck. I can't get the background to fill the entire screen - only the middle - so there is white on the sides. I have been fooling around with it for a week and it is driving me crazy. I have one site that I am going to send a question to, and hopefully they can shed some light on what I am doing wrong.

On a different subject, we got all the paperwork together for the girls' preschool registration - and I don't know what the issue is with my name - but parts of it are spelled wrong everywhere! Andy got their birth certificates yesterday and my maiden name is spelled wrong - and it is a pretty common name. Nothing crazy. Just a plain old' Mc- name. So now I have to call town hall to see if the clerk who typed it up made the mistake or if it there is a mistake on the form they have on file.

Then, when I picked up their Baptism certificates - my first name is spelled wrong. "Rose Marie" - two words - wrong. So I'll call them, too. You know, because my days are so empty and I have nothing else to do.

It's so funny because if we have another girl (one day) I have the name all picked out - and I was tempted to go with a slightly different than normal spelling because it's so pretty that way. I've changed my mind. No need to put her through that torture.

Where did Rosie go?

2009-02-17T22:36:00.005-05:00

Here I am!

What a lovely shot ... just keeping it real. "Look, Ma, no cavities!" Which is true.

I've been away. For no other reason other than this blog got away from me. I had a ton of things to do and when I had a free moment I was more in the mood to eat Pizza Combos and watch TV or buy digiscrap supplies.

Then I would feel bad about being away - and even worse about not visiting my friends and leaving lots of lovely comments. It's like when you forget to write a thank you card, and the longer time goes by the weirder you feel about writing it. If you had just written it the first time you remembered that you forgot ... all would be well.

Right now I am in the midst of getting all the paperwork together to register the girls for preschool this September. I already went and filled out the paperwork and payed the $100 (!) registration fee - but I guess I was the only dunderhead who didn't bring their birth certificates, health records, and Baptism certificates (Catholic school). Then we realized we never even got their birth certificates! So Andy is going to town hall on his lunch tomorrow to pick them up - I am going to Church on Thursday to get their Catholic certifications, and Dr. B's office is faxing over the health records. Whew.

I am also preparing for company this weekend! Andy's brother Matt and his wife Jenny are visiting us from Mississippi and I am excited for them to see the girls. I have to start a-cleanin'!

I finally visited my friend Rosanna and her new baby, Colin! He is the cutest thing and I started crying when I first held him. Just so precious. It definitely made me sure that I wanted another one. Rosanna's hubby, Brian, has a brother who is a professional photographer and he took the most amazing pictures of this baby. She emailed them out and I made this ...

(I smudged out his birthday and stuff for privacy.)

I absolutely loved making it and I am going to print and frame it and give it to them as a present at the Baptism. I want to do them for all the babies in my life!

OK - so I owe you all an "A-Z on Monday: F is for ..." - I think I am going to do both F & G this upcoming Monday to keep them all on the same schedule. THANKS to Jen (creater of said "A-Z" who emailed me to make sure everything was OK. And to everyone who left me comments on my last blog post. I love my blog friends. :)

Look for comments on Wednesday!

It either rains or it pours!

2009-02-12T08:02:00.003-05:00

It seems like my life runs in cycles. I either have all the time in the world to blog and can't think of a thing to write, or I am busier than rooster in a hen house, but have a ton of things to say.

Right now I am in the second phenomenom - minus the poultry.

So here are some Random Rosies ...

1. I have great pictures of the girls playing outside in the beautiful weather yesterday!

2. My new digiscrap hobby is going well - but I can't find the time to do that, either!

3. I have more laundry than is humanly possible for four people to make. It goes against physics.

4. I miss my Blogger friends. :( I am going to try to make the rounds this afternoon and leave lots of lovely comments!

I have no shows to watch tonight, so I will try to submit a more proper post for your enjoyment! Check back!!!

A-Z on Mondays: E is for Ears Pierced

2009-02-09T06:00:00.001-05:00

I love this A-Z on Mondays! I get to delve back into my files and post about this that happened before I started this blog.

OK - so I knew I wanted the girls' ears pierced when they were a few months old. My pediatrician was going to do it, he just wanted to wait for them to be 3 month or so. We ended up doing it in September 2006 when they were 5 months old.

Dr. B took us in on Monday night as his last appointment so he wouldn't be rushed. There was only one choice of earring - the little gold ball. Some of my friends had a whole tray of earrings to choose from - even birthstones. I probably would have picked the little gold balls anyway - it's what a first earring should be.

I can't remember who went first, but I remember having both bottle and ... ahem ... mommy ... ready to feed them as soon as the pinch was over. There was crying, yes - but overall I don't remember it being this horrific experience. We knew what to expect.

He drew dots on each ear (which took about 5 minutes per kid - per ear - I kid you not) and then click clicked away.

When we got home, I took pictures of the sides of their heads to get each ear.

Here is Katie ... right ...

... and left. Happy girl!

Now here is Maddie ... left ...

... and right. Wait ... no right?

Nope. No right. When Dr. B did her right ear, I looked at it and said, very sheepishly, as to not hurt his feelings, "I think it's off center." He and the nurse both looked - and sort of agreed. I started FREAKING OUT inside my head. He is a very quiet man and nothing rattles him - but I didn't really know that about him yet, so his quietness was also freaking me out.

Then he said, very matter of factly, "We can do it over."

Aaaaaah - wave of relief flooded through me. He told me to look at it again when we got home and she was calmer and if I still didn't like it, take it out, clean it - let it heal for two weeks and he would do it again. Which is exactly what we did - hence Maddie the Pirate for two weeks in September.

There were lots of "Ahoy, matie"s and "Yo ho ho"s that month.

For more "A-Z on Mondays" visit Jen over at Unglazed!

See you next Monday for "F"!

Crazy Birthday

2009-02-07T08:42:00.008-05:00

Yesterday was a day of craziness. First I wake up super early to shower because the contractors are coming to work in the living room and I want to look like a human being.

Then, I start to do my hair and pick up my hot air curling brush - it looks like this ...

I turned it on and nothing - not a sound. Broken. Grrrr ... so I had to use a brush and my regular blowdryer, with which I am not coordinated at all. But, if I don't put some sort of curl/body into my hair, it looks like this ...

So I get dressed, go downstairs and proceed to break apart two little girls who have reached the wrestling stage of their lives. I say, "It's Mommy's birthday!" to which Katie replies, "Id's not Mommy birday - nooooo ... id's Daddy's birday" all sullen-like. Then I tickle her and she cracks up.

Not only did I have two men working in my living room all day (who are doing a fantabulous job, by the way ... a whole post on that is coming soon) - but the Water Meter Reader guy was coming by, too, to install some thing-a-ma-job that lets them read water from the street. And he smelled soooo badly like cigars I could have sworn he was smoking one in my basement. I actually went down and checked a couple of times to be sure he wasn't chewing on one.

Maddie wasn't in the mood - so Katie and I made cupcakes just before lunch. She did such a great job! She emptied the bag of cake mix, she poured the water and the oil, (I did the eggs), and she stirred it all up - even held the mixer (with Mommy's help). She held the tray as I poured the mix into each little cupcake paper, which she layed out herself. I could totally see the pride all over her face - it was awesome.

(Aargh - I have no picture of this!)

They ate, had a nice long nap - and my mom and brothers came over for Chinese food - and Andy managed an early night from work, too. I haven't seen my brother Jeffery in years - YEARS! We talked on the phone all the time - but it's not the same. He hadn't seen the girls since they were about 3 months old. He just recently moved back from Vermont and I am so excited that the girls can get to know their granola-crunchy uncle better!

After my brothers left, my mom stayed so Andy and I could make a run to CVS to buy me a new hot air curling brush. I was in sweats, he was in these LL Bean nylon rain pants - and he all of the sudden is in the mood for "a pint" - you know, because we live in the middle of London and all. I look at him and can tell he is totally into it - but all I can think of is how it's 9:30 on a Friday night - how the bars and restaurants are hoppin' - and how much I DO NOT want to walk into a place with no make up on and sweats that are too long on me. Thankfully, he came to that conclusion, too - so we booked my mom for next Friday night so we can go out for a nice dinner. In clothes.

(pic from our honeymoon in WDW)

We went to bed at a nice reasonable hour (for us) and were woken to the sounds of Maddie crying at about 12:30am. Maddie NEVER cries at night - not even when she was a baby. Only is she's sick. She started sleeping through the night very early on and has been a great sleeper ever since. I think it has to do with the fact that she sucks her thumb - very soothing. So ... Maddie woke up and I always go right to her - in case she's about to heave up the contents of her stomach or something. Then Katie heard me and popped straight up in her crib, too - so now I have two screaming girls to calm down. Andy is still dead asleep. He finally wakes up and goes to get them some milk. We plopped them on our bed - gave them the milk - and put them back down. They blissfully fell back to sleep.

This morning I had to wake up early to shower again because we had a birthday party. I get ready to open up my brandy new hair appliance and decide to take ONE LAST LOOK at the old one. I click it on and off - nothing. Then it dawns on me. I look at the plug and push in the reset button. It's all fixed now.

My turn!

2009-02-06T08:15:00.004-05:00

Hey everyone! It's my birthday! I've never been shy about my birthday - I love it!

OK - so - my goal for this year is to look like this again ...

This was at our rehearsal a week before our wedding in July 2003. I was not super skinny by any means, but I was at a nice size where I didn't have to starve myself! So ... off to make a plan!

Have a great day everyone!

Happy Birthday, Andy!

2009-02-05T08:31:00.006-05:00

Dear Andy,

Happy Birthday, oh husband of mine! Today you are 35!

Sorry the girls wouldn't sing to you this morning. But since you feed them breakfast every morning you know how cranky they are when they wake up.
Sorry you had to do the mundane tasks of going to the dry cleaners and getting your car's oil changed.

Sorry we spent all our money on a soon-to-be finished living room so there's none left for presents.

Sorry you have to work past 9pm every night until April ... auditing companies who don't know how to keep their data organized.

But I am glad that you are my hubby and that we get to celebrate our birthdays together every year!

Love, Your darling wife

(PS - Today we are both 35, my dear - I don't turn 36 for one more day!)

Another Digiscrap Layout

2009-02-04T09:37:00.003-05:00

My second attempt ... I entered this in a challenge where the theme is "Kisses" ...

(Credits for paper and embellishments: A Changed Heart Designs, Creative Digital Scraps by Chiara, and Gail Cook/3scrapateers. Check out their sites - they have amazing designs.)

A great giveaway from Katy

2009-02-03T14:11:00.003-05:00

You must check out the great giveaway happening over at Fun with the Baker 5.

Katy just became a consultant for Scentsy and is giving away a warmer and those melty things that go on top! There are two designs and 3 scents to choose from.

Thank you, Katy - and good luck to all who enter!

A-Z on Mondays: D is for Daddy

2009-02-02T08:24:00.001-05:00

I could not have hoped for a better father for my children than Andy. He lives for them. He loves nothing more than to be on the floor playing with them - usually in some sort of building way. Blocks are his favorite and he has constructed MANY a tall skyscraper with them.

He never hesitates to do the daily tasks - feeding, diapers, putting them to bed. He has done all of this from Day One and is very proud of it all. He gives me time to myself almost every weekend - "Leave!" he says as he sees me start to melt down, "We'll be fine." And I know they will.

Here is a little slideshow of him with the girls - looking at these pictures always makes me smile. (If you can't see the slideshow, click my header above. It's in a separate post.)

Come back next Monday for E - and to see more "A-Z on Mondays" visit Jen over at Unglazed!

Daddy and his girls

2009-02-02T08:23:00.001-05:00

Oh no - I have another hobby now!

2009-01-31T11:13:00.004-05:00

I have entered into the realm of digital scrapbooking - or digiscrapping, as I found it called. I am hooked. I downloaded a bunch of freebies from Lily Belle Scraps - you must check her out! - and I went to town. Here is my very first, very amateurish page ...

I know I have too much "white space" and my drop shadows are a bit much, but really I was just playing with my program to figure out how to place and move things around.

I'll post more soon! -- Rose

Smiling

2009-01-28T15:12:00.004-05:00

It has been such a nice day.

Andy went shopping on his way home from work last night and I had him pick up a whole chicken so I could make soup today. Soup always makes me feel better. I wanted dumplings, also. After noting that the Bisquick I had in my fridge expired in 2005, I had him pick up a new box of that as well.

We had a big icy snow last night - so while Andy went out and shoveled this morning I fed the girls breakfast and they ate so nicely it was amazing. Mealtimes give me agida (looked up the spelling of that one - there are a million ways) and for some reason they just ate like angels. After that we all went to sit on the potties (well, not me!) and Maddie did her thing. And she got a sticker. Katie couldn't do her thing. But she wanted a sticker and sat on that potty for half an hour. Didn't happen though so I talked her into trying again later. No sticker. :(

After that I put the chicken in a big pot of water with veggies and parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Just like the song. Easy to remember. It cooked for about 2 hours - I broke the chicken apart - added more veggies - and then Andy had a big bowl right before he went to work. He is not a dumpling fan, so I'll make those later for my dinner.

The girls and I played and read and had another lovely meal (is it a full moon?) and then after Sesame Street it was naptime. I did all the dishes and - because they are Andy's favorite thing in the world - I made yellow cupcakes. (He bought the mix last night so I figured that was a big fat hint!)

So now it is almost 3:30 in the afternoon and I hear the girls stirring. Gotta go. Hope you all are having a nice day, too.

Yay!

2009-01-27T09:52:00.003-05:00

Katie went on the potty once last night and once this morning!

Maddie went once last night (just missed it this morning - no problem - we'll just try again)!

Mama is doing a happy dance!

A-Z on Mondays: C is for Cups

2009-01-26T09:26:00.003-05:00

I let the girls drink out of their bottles WAY TOO LONG! Past their second birthday. We had a very hard time getting them onto a cup - and went through about 15 different types until I found one they liked.

This is what they settled on ...

They are made by First Years and are called "Take 'n' Toss" - and they rock. They are cheap cheap cheap (like $4 for 8 of them) and they are not made out of that bad plastic.

They come in a million colors. I thought the girls would get a kick out of choosing a different color each day, but Katie always wants purple and Maddie always wants green. If all the greens and purples are dirty (not uncommon in this house) the only way I can get them to use another color is if they both get the SAME EXACT color with the SAME EXACT lid. It's nuts.

Now, you may be asking, "Rose, why do you have so many of them?" (And that first picture doesn't even show all of them.) My answer is ... it's like a suit. Have you ever seen My Blue Heaven with Steve Martin? There was one scene where he was explaining to Rick Moranis if you hang up your suit jacket but lay around in your pants all night you'll eventually have to have your pants cleaned more than your jacket and you end up with a mismatched suit.

The girls treat the lids of these cups like Rick Moranis treats his pants. The girls continue to chew on the lid spout long after the cups are empty - and the mouthpieces eventually end up cracking and they leak. So we chuck them (hence the "Toss") and get to the point where we have more cups than lids - so we buy a new set or two. But since we never really retire the older cups, they build up - and we end up with a ton of them. Right now I think the ratio is 2:1 of cups to lids!

See you next week for D! If you want to see more "A-Z on Monday" visit Jen over at Unglazed!

------------------------------------------------------------
I am starting to feel better - THANK YOU ALL for the comments and thoughts. I am taking my medicines and they are helping. What is killing me the most is the lack of sleep at night because I am coughing so much I really can't settle down. The girls are both sick now, too - noses and coughing. This has been one tough winter, man. Only 3 more months???

Bronchitis

2009-01-23T14:25:00.005-05:00

Yes - I have bronchitis. I knew this was not just a regular cold when I realized my nose was clear as day and my throat was filled with a glob of yuck.

I just got back from the doctor and he put my on Prednisone and an inhaler.

I may be very sporadic in my posts for a while - my energy is zapped and all I want to do is sleep. I have to rest as much as I can for the girls (it breaks my heart how much I have plopped them in front of the TV these past few days) and I think the computer will be on the back burner for a while. :(

Stay tuned - I'll be back. :) -- Rosie

Thanks, everyone!

2009-01-22T09:47:00.003-05:00

Hey there! Thanks so much for the well wishes yesterday. I rarely get sick but when I do it hits me so hard. I woke up today still feeling gross, but I seem to be improving as the day goes on. Thank you, God, for this beautiful sunny day. It is helping me feel so much better - thank you!

I have a post that I am working on called "No Knead Bread" - have you ever heard of it? One of my twin club freinds sent it to me because she thought I would love it and she was right. I channeled Pioneer Woman and took step-by-step pictures of the whole thing - I was such a dork. I am working on that post now.

Is anyone else as frustrated with the picture uploading process here on Blogger as much as I am? It bugs me that they all get uploaded to the top of the post - and a million spaces get inserted into your text. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a trick I need to know about?

So once I get the energy to fight with Blogger to get my post to look the way I'd like it to, I will finish that up. I was going to do it last night, but ... LOST was on, people! I have watched it from day one and supported it through it's ups and downs and I am sooooo excited that it is back. And it is sooooooooooooooo good!

If you into LOST, there is a great blog that I read: http://blog.zap2it.com/lost/ - this guy is an awesome writer and recapper. You can read his analysis right from the first episode. It is also a spoiler-free site, which I love. I like to be surprised as I watch. Most definitely worth a visit.

This was a random post, huh? Sometimes those are the best.

I am sick

2009-01-21T16:36:00.002-05:00

I am sick. Swollen throat. Stuffed nose. Aches and pains.

I'll live. I'll be back tomorrow.

Inauguration

2009-01-20T10:32:00.002-05:00

I have been watching the inauguration coverage on CNN on and off this morning, as the girls will let me! I think, "it must be so amazing to be there" then I see the bundled up people and the bustling crowds and I am more than happy to watch it from my couch.

I am not a political person, and I really don't like talking politics. I don't understand enough to feel like I can make a comment and support it well. And I don't like being lectured. Why is it ... if you support one party ... does it mean you have to vehemently hate the other?

So anyway - enough of that. Enjoy your day!

A-Z on Mondays: B is for Boppy

2009-01-19T06:00:00.001-05:00

This is truly the greatest invented baby product of all time. It is called The Boppy. It saved my sanity on many occasion. I nursed with it (sorry, no pictures of that!) ...

... the girls slept in it (I KNOW - but I was right there the whole time! Taking pictures, of course!) ...

(all warm and cuddly)

... and when they got older it helped them practice sitting up.

They still use it to this day for lounging or drinking their milk right before they go to bed. If we have another kid I'm going to have to get him or her their own - the girls get upset even if I lay down on either of them!

See you next week for "C"!

(To see more "A-Z on Mondays", or to start participating yourself, visit Jen over at Unglazed!)

Hope Christmas Never Ends!

2009-01-16T09:28:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago my dad and my Aunt Beverly and my Aunt Susan came to visit the girls (they would say they wanted to see us, too - but I think the girls outrank us!).

The girls love when people PLAY with them - and this day was no exception. There was lots of hide-and-seek and chasing and Blue's Clues and reading. You can totally tell by the expression on their faces that everyone had a great time.

I made a pasta with meatballs - and everyone brought yummy desserts that were delish. I attempted to feed the girls real food while the rest of us ate dessert and Andy just looked at me like, "You're kidding right?" The second the girls saw all the goodies that was the end of that. They had cake for dinner (I think Katie did eat a little pasta first).

Everyone had a great day - and took a ton of pictures. There were four cameras going!

Here is a slideshow of the day - enjoy!

(*The slideshow is in a different post - so if you clicked here through the title of this post you just need to click my header above and you will see the slideshow below this!* whew!)

2009-01-16T09:27:00.001-05:00

Random Rosies

2009-01-15T09:00:00.003-05:00

1. It's snowing, but it's a powder. Andy just took out the broom and swiped it all away like magic.

2. My friend is a scrapper - I am not. I have started and stopped over the years. She found an all-day-crop that is not too far from us for not a lot of moolah. Will I go with her? Out of the house for a day? SURE!

3. I am in an unmotivated space when it comes to posts. I have a few in the "draft" stage - they are coming. I promise.

4. I spend way too much "nap time" on Facebook, thereby contributing to #3 above.

Happy Thursday ...

We missed you!

2009-01-13T09:07:00.000-05:00

My first year of teaching was in 2002. I started mid-year in January and I took over for one of my favorite teachers. Yep - I had gone back to teach in my old high school.

My first week was horrible. My favorite teacher was also their favorite teacher and those little 9th graders wanted nothing to do with me. I was walking a fine line between being super-strict to announce my authority (!) and being kind to let them know I was rational. I cried every night and I was exhausted. I was in bed by 7pm sometimes. The week I started was also the first week I started dating Andy - so there was lots going on.

By my second year I had it all together. Yes - there were days that still drove me nuts - but I also learned to relax and enjoy myself. I learned to look past the kids' behavior while they were learning (which was where most of the acting-up occured) and started to see how they acted before the bell rang. They cracked me up - they were so smart and talented and funny and real. I learned a lot that year. During that second year I had two students, Katie and Kristen, who were just great. They were fraternal twin girls (talk about foreshadowing), different as night and day (more foreshadowing). When they graduated 4 years later they ended up attending a college about 15 minutes from where I live now. They would come over every Tuesday night for dinner and to hang out with the little girls. I became friends with their mom, too - they are such a nice family.

This is their sophomore year in college now and things got busy for them, as it should, so our weekly dinners had to be put on the back burner for a while. But they got to visit a few weeks ago with their mom. Here are some pictures from that day ...

Katie readind to Maddie - a "Max and Ruby" book of course!

The whole gang hanging out! Mrs. Mullen loves to read this blog - and she tells me it brings back so many memories of her girls when they were this age. She gives me tons of advice - especially for meals! (Yuck to meals is what I say.)

Kristen is in the background there - my Katie gravitates to her and likes to climb and bounce and rough around.

This is the adorable fleece jacket and hat they gave my girls for Christmas. Katie wouldn't take it off!

We ended up coloring at the kitchen table - and they ALL colored. (My Katie, still wearing her jacket. The hat is hanging on the phone - look upper right.)

I was cooking dinner throughout this - and Mrs. Mullen was giving me tips like to save the Happy Meal bags from McDonald's and put their food in that. She did that for her girls years ago - and she said with a wink that sometimes McDonald's served broccoli!

I am so glad that they were able to visit me - and I hope to see them all again soon!

A-Z on Mondays: A is for Argyle Dresses

2009-01-12T05:00:00.003-05:00

I am beginning to participate in a new event: "A-Z on Mondays" created by Jen over at Unglazed.

I am going to keep the pictures all about the little ladies ... they were 5 months old in this picture and my cousin, Fortunata, gave them these beautiful argyle dresses. I loved them! I loved the little coller, how it came with little bottoms attached with snaps to make it easier to change them, and I loved that they were "the same, but different."

Katie is in the pink, Maddie in the orange. Look at thier little fat arms and bowed legs. I would call them my "oven stuffer roasters" and pretend to gobble them up. They'd crack up - it was hysterical. This picture totally brings me right back to that time - we were in the townhouse. I close my eyes and I am there.

I think I am going to love Mondays.